Enter 2010. Standing in a large and sweaty crowd at the now-defunct Bamboozle Music Festival in East Rutherford, New Jersey, I watched as Ke$ha danced around onstage in a headdress, blinding everyone with lights, synth, and pounds of glitter. “Tik Tok”, “Blah Blah Blah”, and “Your Love Is My Drug” had taken over the radio. Ke$ha and her producer Dr. Luke were a seemingly unstoppable duo who were bound for world domination.
Yet, now, in 2015, Kesha Sebert is fresh out of rehab and in the middle of one of the most publicized legal battles in music’s recent history. In five short years, Sebert has risen, fallen, and is set to rise again. Except this time, without the dollar sign.
2014 was a bad year for the Nashville native to say the least. Two singles off of her second album Warrior, “C’mon” and “Crazy Kids”, were relative commercial failures. This would kick off a round of fan scrutiny of her long-time mentor Lukasz Gottwald, better known as Dr. Luke. Fans asserted that Luke was stifling Kesha’s talent, and it wasn’t long before the songstress herself confirmed it. Later that year, she filed a grisly lawsuit against Gottwald, claiming that she endured 9 years of sexual and emotional abuse at his hands. She alleged in her lawsuit that Luke had drugged her and sexually assaulted her while she was unconscious. In addition, she claimed his abuse led to her struggles with eating disorders, as he would refer to her as a “refrigerator” and insist that she lose weight.
If you are like me and choose to believe Kesha’s story (keep in mind, nothing has yet been determined by the court), her comeback is set to be one for the books. Signed to Luke’s label in 2005 when she was just 18, Sebert became Dr. Luke’s best investment. However, years of pressure from Luke, the media, and the public took their toll on the young musician. Known for her onstage antics, Kesha told Elle Magazine that she “didn’t want to be just pretty – I was wild, crazy, and free. I talked about sex, about drinking. When men do that, it’s rock and roll, but when I did it, people assumed I was a trainwreck. I played confident but still felt like an outcast.” This seemingly perfect pop princess was just like the rest of us: tired, scared, and insecure. Magazines often branded her as “fat”, even though she was perfectly healthy. This wasn’t enough for Sebert, however, and she developed bulimia nervosa in an attempt to lose weight and avoid scrutiny. She struggled with the disease for years until January 2nd, 2014, when she made the decision to check herself into a rehabilitation facility and face her problems head-on.
Today, Kesha has begun her comeback. Back to a healthy weight, she has started to speak out about her time working with Dr. Luke, saying that she is finally not afraid to share her story. Luke is one of the most prominent collaborators in the industry, and standing up to a man of his stature takes courage that not many people possess. The Grammy-nominated producer continues to deny her allegations and when The New Yorker asked him about Kesha, he said only that he “hasn’t heard from her in a while”. She began to move on without him, shedding the image he had helped create.
Kesha has dropped the dollar sign from her name. She’s stopped covering herself in glitter for every performance. She beautifully sings live in small clubs without the help of backing tracks. Her shows have a much more raw feel to them, utilizing more acoustic guitar than synthesizers. Her comeback is in the making, and she’s doing it on her own terms. In my opinion, this girl, once thought of by critics as an untalented mess, is setting an example for women everywhere that it is possible to free yourself from your demons, whether they be a controlling man or a mental disorder. Who knew that the chick who once sang about brushing her teeth with Jack Daniels would end up inspiring us all?
