While Kesha has delivered infectious beats ever since bursting onto the scene with 2009's
"Tik Tok," she's also unfortunately been through some truly traumatic events in her life.
Thankfully, she's come through these struggles all the better for it.
Let's take a look inside Kesha's tragic life.
In an interview with The Guardian, Kesha revealed that she grew up poor in Nashville, Tennessee,
relying on welfare and food stamps and her poverty actually continued into the early
days of her pop stardom.
Shocking as it may seem, she allegedly didn't make a dime from her feature on Flo Rida's
"Right Round," which inspired her to temporarily add the dollar sign to her stage name.
According to Vulture, Kesha initially wasn't credited on the American release of the song,
and also claimed she was never paid for her vocals on it.
She told The Guardian,
"The dollar sign, to be honest, was me taking the piss out of being broke.
[...] I would hear my voice everywhere I'd walk into a movie and it would be playing.
I'd walk into Walgreens, the grocery store, and it was playing, at a time when I didn't
even have enough money to buy my groceries in, like, the dollar store."
The musician recalled hearing the track at a bar with friends, adding,
"One of my favorite memories in my entire life is sitting in that crappy bar with my
friends eating free tacos.
There is no correlation between happiness and amounts of money."
In January 2014, Kesha checked into a rehabilitation center after struggling with an eating disorder,
where she stayed for three months.
Explaining that her condition was triggered by pressures from the music industry and media,
she told Rolling Stone,
"I was slowly, slowly starving myself.
The worse I got and the sicker I got, the better a lot of people around me were saying
that I looked.
They would just be like, 'Oh my gosh, keep doing whatever you're doing!
You look so beautiful, so stunning.'"
Kesha finally realized she needed help when she felt anxiety at a dinner party about whether
the other attendees would realize she wasn't eating.
While receiving treatment outside of Chicago, a nutritionist and therapists taught her to
love herself again, but it wasn't easy.
She explained,
"I just remember crying into a carbohydrate.
Being like, 'I can't eat it.
It's going to make me fat, and if I'm fat, I can't be a singer because pop stars can't
eat food they can't be fat.'"
Following her recovery, Kesha thankfully not only had a healthier relationship with food,
but also with social media and alcohol consumption.
Kesha sued her longtime producer, Dr. Luke, in October 2014, alleging that he drugged
and assaulted her on at least one occasion, according to TMZ.
In addition to fearing physical violence from him, she also claimed he was verbally and
emotionally abusive during the near-decade they'd worked together, including allegedly
body-shaming her, which further triggered her eating disorder.
Dr. Luke denied the allegations and countersued Kesha for defamation and breach of contract,
accusing her of trying to extort him to get a new record deal.
The two have gone back and forth in court in both California and New York ever since.
Kesha claimed in April 2016 that Dr. Luke allegedly offered her a settlement and to
release her from his label if she recanted her assault allegation which she refused to
do.
However, Kesha later dropped her sexual abuse lawsuit against him in order to focus on her
music.
In September 2019, Kesha was denied an appeal in her New York countersuit to exit her contract
with Dr. Luke, according to E! News.
Meanwhile, Dr. Luke's defamation suit remained ongoing.
Throughout Kesha's lawsuit against Dr. Luke, her career remained in limbo as she tried
to extricate herself from her recording contract.
She wasn't able to release new music for much of it, alleging that Dr. Luke wouldn't allow
it.
He denied the claims, and in April 2016, Kesha released a collaboration with Zedd, "True
Colors," with Dr. Luke's permission.
Kesha was slated to perform at the Billboard Music Awards the following month, until Dr.
Luke's team temporarily revoked permission.
They later granted it, saying in a statement she was initially prohibited from taking the
stage in case she used the platform to discuss their ongoing litigation.
In 2019, Kesha told The Guardian that Dr. Luke had previously instructed her to embody
the persona of the wild, fun party girl and to release auto-tuned pop songs.
She told Rolling Stone,
"What's been put out as singles have just perpetuated a particular image that may or
may not be entirely accurate.
I'd like to show the world other sides of my personality.
I don't want to just continue putting out the same song and becoming a parody [of] myself.
I have so much more to offer than that and I can't wait till the world really gets to
hear that on the radio."
2017 saw the release of Kesha's first solo single in years, "Praying," and her empowering
album, Rainbow on which she had creative control.
Months after the emotional single was released, the [Me Too] movement was underway, leading
a slew of female artists and sexual assault survivors to join Kesha onstage at the 2018
Grammys for a moving performance of the track.
Of the [Me Too] movement in general, Kesha told Rolling Stone in October 2019,
"Obviously I'm heartbroken that any kind of sexual abuse happens to any human being in
the world.
It shouldn't have to be something that is a movement, and that makes me really sad.
But I commend any person who has stood up and told their truth, because it's really
difficult."
While making it clear that she couldn't speak much about her ongoing litigation with Dr.
Luke, Kesha has found plenty of support within the industry, with stars like Adele, Lady
Gaga, Kelly Clarkson, Ariana Grande, and Taylor Swift who even donated a hefty sum to her
legal fees.
Kesha's January 2020 album, High Road, would mark her return to pop form.
In a trailer for the album, she claimed she had been in a much more serious headspace
while making her previous record.
"But now, on my new record, I revisit my roots of pure and utter debaucherous joy."
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