(Credit: AP/Charles Sykes)
As Salon reported back in September, the pop star Kesha is currently embroiled in a contentious civil lawsuit with both her longtime producer Dr. Luke (aka Lukasz Gottwald), and the record label Sony. (Kesha’s signed to Gottwald’s Kemosabe Records, which is an imprint of Sony, as well as his publishing company, Prescription Songs.) In the suit, she alleges years of physical, sexual and emotional abuse from Dr. Luke, and asks to be freed from these record and publishing contracts. Gottwald, in turn, summarily sued her for (among other things) defamation, and accused her of using legal action to try to get out of her deals.
Also back in September, the Twitter hashtag #FreedomForKesha trended on Twitter, in a show of solidarity for the singer-songwriter. The outpouring of support came on the heels of a Hollywood Reporter article that revealed Kesha’s legal team had called for a preliminary injunction to expedite court proceedings, after claiming the current legal action means she’s at “an impasse. She cannot work with music producers, publishers, or record labels to release new music. With no new music to perform, Kesha cannot tour. Off the radio and stage and out of the spotlight, Kesha cannot sell merchandise, receive sponsorships, or get media attention.”
To punctuate the dire nature of this situation, the brief went on to say, “Her brand value has fallen, and unless the Court issues this injunction, Kesha will suffer irreparable harm, plummeting her career past the point of no return.” Sadly, it appears that this pleading hasn’t done much good: At the end of October, the Hollywood Reporter revealed that Kesha told Sony she’d record an album for them, as long as Dr. Luke and Kemosabe weren’t part of the equation. The article noted Sony rejected this deal on Oct. 13; in fact, Kesha’s attorney, Mark Geragos, stated in court filings, “The letters in response indicated both Sony and Dr. Luke believe the exclusivity clauses remain in effect, they will not agree to refrain from enforcement, and Sony specifically will not work with Kesha unless she agrees to work with Kemosabe and Dr. Luke’s company, KMI.”
As in 2013—when an online petition called “Let Ke$ha have creative freedom”circulated—Kesha’s fans aren’t taking these setbacks quietly. A new petition titled“Tell Sony Not to Force Her to Work With Her Alleged Abuser” currently has more than 56,000 signatures and is being promoted on Twitter with the hashtag #FreeKesha and via the influential activist social network Care2. The media is also keeping the court fight visible in the news cycle: Earlier this week, writer Haley Potiker at the website Passion of the Weiss delineated Kesha and Dr. Luke’s decade-long professional association and the ongoing legal maneuvers in a meticulously researched post, “What Happened to Kesha? A Timeline.”
Seeing the scope of the accusations and allegations spelled out so clearly was heartbreaking and horrifying, especially since the alleged abuse appeared to start very soon after Kesha dropped out of high school and moved from Nashville to Los Angeles to pursue music. As this article points out, her lawsuit’s initial complaint stated Dr. Luke “forced [her] to take drugs and alcohol in order to take advantage of her sexually while she was intoxicated.” At another point, the lawsuit alleges that he raped her after giving her the date-rape drug GHB—which the suit says he called “sober pills”—and then “threatened that if she ever mentioned the rape to anyone, he would shut her career down, take away all her publishing and recording rights, and otherwise destroy not only her life but her entire family’s lives as well.”
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