# The Abuse and Manipulation of Ke$ha

An episode of [Outlore with Eleanor Neale](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/1682504024), 29 Jul 2025, 58 min.

Audio: https://traffic.megaphone.fm/APO3528782234.mp3

Los Angeles, 2005: A young Kesha has just been kicked out of Paris Hilton’s house party for throwing up in a shoe closet, only the events that would follow this, would change the trajectory of her life forever. That same night, her producer, Dr Luke walked Kesha back to his hotel room at the Mondrian Hotel, a quick walk from Paris’ house. But after arriving, Kesha would black out, her memory of the rest of the night wiped - only to awaken the next morning with a very bad, dark feeling… What followed was not only a decade-long fight to get to the bottom of what happened in that hotel room, but also a legal battle, to finally be released from the man who Kesha was convinced was her abuser. Resources: Revenge Porn Helpline UK - https://revengepornhelpline.org.uk/ Revenge Porn Helpline US - https://cybercivilrights.org/ccri-safety-center/ https://linktr.ee/eleanornealeresources Watch OUTLORE Podcast: https://www.youtube.com/@EleanorNeale Follow Me Here for Updates & Short Form Content: Instagram TikTok

## Transcript

[0:00] Hello and welcome to Outlaw Podcast.
[0:02] I'm Ellen O'Neill, and in today's episode we're in Los
[0:06] Angeles in 2005 at Paris Hiltons house party where, after
[0:11] throwing up in a shoe closet, the 17 year old newly signed
[0:15] artist Ke$ha was about to be kicked out.
[0:18] The next morning she would wake up in a man's hotel room.
[0:22] She was naked, confused and violently ill.
[0:26] And now, for a decade, she would be trapped in contracts and
[0:31] deals that forced her to work with the very same man who had
[0:35] taken her back to that hotel room.
[0:42] In 2005, ACD was handed to music producer Lucas Gottwald, now
[0:47] infamously known as Doctor Luke. On this CD that he was handed,
[0:52] there were 100 tracks from 100 different unsigned artists, and
[0:57] out of all of these 100 songs, only two voices stood out to
[1:01] him. One was a young Katy Perry and
[1:04] the second an even younger teenage girl named Ke$ha.
[1:08] Doctor Luke Sweet talked and signed both artists, but Ke$ha,
[1:13] who was still just a child, could never have imagined the
[1:16] nightmare that awaited her after signing on that dotted line.
[1:21] The man that was supposed to be her mentor, a guiding light that
[1:25] would protect her in this crazy industry, was secretly the most
[1:30] dangerous person she could have trusted.
[1:33] In today's episode we're going to be covering a lot of
[1:35] sensitive topics including sexual assault, rape, revenge
[1:39] porn, eating disorders and addiction.
[1:42] Viewer discretion is advised. Before we get into the case, I
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[3:09] And now back to the episode Miss Ke$ha K Dollar Sign ha needs no
[3:14] introduction, but I'm going to give her a little bit of one
[3:16] anyway because obviously you're at Outlaw Podcast.
[3:19] That's just what we do here. So Ke$ha was born Ke$ha Rose
[3:23] Sebert in Los Angeles, CA on March 1st, 1987 and that makes
[3:28] her 38 years old now. She was raised by her single
[3:32] mother PB alongside an older brother from PBS previous
[3:36] marriage to a country musician. You'll very soon see that music
[3:40] ran in the veins of this whole family.
[3:43] But three years after PBS marriage to that country singer
[3:46] ended, Ke$ha was born, and it's unclear who her father was.
[3:52] Even still now, he's never been identified, at least not
[3:55] publicly, which we are going to circle back to soon.
[3:58] But Mama PB was a musician. She was a songwriter by
[4:03] profession, specializing in country music.
[4:06] Of course, this was Nashville, and she took pride in writing
[4:09] for the likes of Dolly Parton and others.
[4:12] She would often bring her daughter along to the music
[4:14] studios where a little Ke$ha would play around singing and
[4:18] practicing the piano when the rooms were free.
[4:20] From an early age, music was everywhere in Ke$ha's life and
[4:24] she knew so early on that she wanted to be a singer and she
[4:29] was going to be a singer. So she learnt to play the piano,
[4:32] she learnt to write her own songs and eventually she was
[4:35] entering competitions, recording demo CDs and sending them out to
[4:39] producers and record deals to hopefully get discovered.
[4:42] And finally, when she was a teenager, her brick, her big
[4:46] brick, her brick brick big break would come in the most bizarre
[4:50] way possible. When she was invited onto Paris
[4:53] Hilton and Nicole Richie's reality show The Simple Life,
[4:57] They basically had this casting call for anyone that wanted to
[5:00] be set up on a date by the girls.
[5:03] And Ke$ha's mom, PB, saw this ad and signed her family up.
[5:07] PB, who like I said had been a successful songwriter in Ke$ha's
[5:11] younger years, actually hadn't been in show business for quite
[5:15] a while at this point in time. In fact, she was actually
[5:18] struggling to make ends meet, hence why she signed her family
[5:22] up for this reality TV opportunity.
[5:24] To be totally honest with you, I think Ke$ha's family were
[5:27] financially struggling at this point in time.
[5:30] Her mom had been waitressing and picking up shifts and and odd
[5:33] jobs wherever she could. But this one, this reality TV
[5:37] opportunity would be different because it would include her
[5:40] whole family, including her 17 year old daughter who was
[5:44] desperate to be discovered and get famous.
[5:47] She would get to meet Paris Hilton, Nicole Richie and be on
[5:51] TV. And at this point in time, the
[5:53] good news would come in waves for Ke$ha.
[5:55] Because one night after the family returned home from
[5:58] filming the show, their house phone rang.
[6:00] Ke$ha's demo had been discovered by producer Dr. Luke.
[6:05] He invited Ke$ha and her mother to come for dinner out with him
[6:07] in New York. They flew all the way there to
[6:10] be handed a contract. Signing on the dotted line would
[6:15] legally bind Ke$ha into making six albums with Doctor Luke, and
[6:20] she wouldn't be able to collaborate with anyone else
[6:24] during that time. Luke has even said himself that
[6:27] this is a really shit deal to lock someone into, but that's
[6:31] just what he did, you know? He would sign his talent on
[6:34] these insane terms, quite unreasonable terms, but he would
[6:38] insist that once they gain a bit more traction, once they become
[6:41] a bit more famous, then they can renegotiate something a bit more
[6:44] fair later down the line. But as it stood, it was a six
[6:49] album deal on nothing. So in September 2005, after
[6:53] giving it some thought, a freshly 18 year old Ke$ha signed
[6:57] the sixth album contract, binding herself to him for what
[7:00] would be her entire career. Luke wanted her in the studio
[7:05] pretty much immediately after she had signed this contract.
[7:08] He worked all the way out in LA, so she was going to have to come
[7:12] to him. Remember, she lived in Nashville
[7:13] with her family, so this meant figuring out a cheap living
[7:18] situation in LA Quick. But as we have been saying,
[7:21] Ke$ha's family didn't have a lot of money, but her mom did have a
[7:25] lot of ideas. Ke$ha's biological father
[7:28] supposedly lived out in LA and realistically, he kind of
[7:32] ordered something after not being in her life for so long.
[7:35] And so with that, Ke$ha hopped off the plane at LAX with a
[7:38] dream and stepped into a freak's apartment.
[7:43] Like, she arrives at her dad's place and immediately the vibes
[7:47] are off. This guy was weird.
[7:49] He put the strange in stranger and Ke$ha is starting to clock
[7:53] that this isn't her dad. Her mom had sent her to stay in
[7:58] some random man's apartment. I'm not going to lie gang, I
[8:01] don't know what PB was thinking or why this happened.
[8:05] I also don't know who this man was or what PB had said to him.
[8:09] I think he was genuinely pretending to be Ke$ha's dad
[8:12] while she was staying at this apartment.
[8:14] It's so weird and Ke$ha always tells this story so casually
[8:19] like it's no biggie and she like laughs through it.
[8:21] Which honestly I think could be a bit of a trauma response
[8:25] because this is such a weird and and creepy situation to have
[8:29] been in just living at this random guys house.
[8:31] Who's pretending to be your dad? I mean in the nicest way
[8:35] possible I don't think that PB was the most level headed mum.
[8:40] She herself actually had quite a few issues and her relationship
[8:44] with Ke$ha was a bit strange. But let's park that for now.
[8:48] We are going to come back to it. But back to Ke$ha living at this
[8:52] random guy's house. She was freaked out by this man
[8:55] and so she decides that she's going to move out and she's just
[8:58] going to live in her car for a little while.
[9:00] She's thinking, well it's not going to be long term anyway
[9:02] because Doctor Luke was already blowing up her phone with work
[9:06] opportunities now that she was in LA.
[9:08] Within 9 days of being there, he had Ke$ha in the studio singing
[9:12] backing vocals for Paris Hilton's new song.
[9:15] But this session is actually when the criminal case that
[9:19] we're talking about today really begins.
[9:21] It was the 5th of October 2005. The recording session wrapped at
[9:26] 10:46 PM, but the night wasn't over yet.
[9:29] Paris's sister Nikki was hosting her 22nd birthday at a club on
[9:34] Hollywood Blvd. called Mood Doctor.
[9:36] Luke was invited because he knew the Hiltons and everything and
[9:40] Ke$ha could come along kind of like as his plus one for the
[9:43] night. Bear in mind, he's 32 and she's
[9:47] still only 18. She's not even allowed to drink,
[9:51] let alone get into a club. The age is 21 over in America.
[9:54] But regardless, she's allowed into this party and she's
[9:58] offered champagne refills the same as any other guest of legal
[10:02] age. By midnight, she's had about two
[10:04] or three glasses of champagne, and she's not feeling good.
[10:08] Ke$ha didn't really have much experience with drinking alcohol
[10:11] at this point in time. I mean, she's 18.
[10:13] It's literally illegal. She hadn't been out drinking
[10:15] with her friends yet. So these two or three glasses of
[10:18] champagne affected her all the more.
[10:21] Everyone was meant to be going back to Paris's house for an
[10:24] after party, and Ke$ha desperately wanted to, like,
[10:27] pull herself together and go to that party.
[10:29] It would be the ultimate networking opportunity.
[10:32] But she's not feeling well, so she goes and rests on the
[10:36] pavement outside, telling Doctor Luke I don't feel great, I feel
[10:40] a little drunk. To which allegedly Dr. Luke
[10:44] presents her with a remedy saying I have a sober pill.
[10:48] Ke$ha recalls him handing her this pill and she swallowed it.
[10:53] In her mind she thought that this was some genius hangover
[10:58] relief pill that only rich people knew about.
[11:01] And she thought soon it'll kick in, it'll heal her completely
[11:05] and she'll be able to power on with the night.
[11:07] And with that Doctor Luke and Ke$ha head to Paris's house,
[11:10] which is what it was only like 2 minutes away from the club.
[11:14] And at this after party, she has one more glass of champagne and
[11:18] now she's starting to feel really sick.
[11:20] Whatever that pill was, and this next glass of champagne, it all
[11:25] wasn't reacting very well in her stomach.
[11:27] And so she runs off to find a bathroom, can't find one, and
[11:31] instead finds herself throwing up in Paris Hilton's closet.
[11:35] Can you imagine? Eventually she managed to find a
[11:39] bathroom. After throwing up in the closet
[11:41] she finds a bathroom and goes and throws up in there as well.
[11:44] When she burst into this bathroom there were a group of
[11:47] other party people crowding around a tray of drugs and as
[11:51] soon as she starts throwing up I guess it kills everyone's vibe
[11:54] and they emptied out real quick. Apart from one man who hung back
[11:58] and told her hey, you should maybe do some coke.
[12:02] In response, Ke$ha whacks the tray of drugs out of this guy's
[12:06] hand and onto the floor. Probably the quickest way to
[12:10] piss off a bunch of LA socialites.
[12:12] That would have been one expensive tray of drugs.
[12:16] Paris's assistant sees all of this commotion going on and she
[12:20] ran downstairs to rat Ke$ha out and soon enough she got kicked
[12:24] out of the Paris Hilton after party Doctor Luke left with her.
[12:28] And from this point on, Ke$ha has no memory of of the rest of
[12:32] the night, but Luke claims that he does.
[12:36] So According to him, the rest of the night went like this.
[12:39] He and Ke$ha walked for around 6 minutes along the Sunset Strip
[12:43] to the Mondrian Hotel where Luke was renting a suite on the 12th
[12:47] floor. He claims that he doesn't
[12:50] remember who brought it up, but during the walk there, they
[12:53] apparently agreed that 18 year old Ke$ha would stay over at his
[12:56] hotel room. Just after 1:00 AM they arrive
[13:00] at his suite which was just like one big big open plan room.
[13:04] It had the bed and the sofa like in the same room.
[13:07] He took the sofa, Ke$ha took the bed and According to him they
[13:10] both just went straight to sleep because he had to be up early in
[13:14] the morning. It had been a long night.
[13:16] He actually had a meeting the next day with his other brand
[13:19] new discovery, Katy Perry. So they apparently both go to
[13:23] sleep. He wakes up early the next day
[13:26] and on his way out of the hotel room, Luke told Ke$ha, hey, I'm
[13:30] going to leave, you can chill out here.
[13:31] It's all good. He doesn't remember Ke$ha
[13:34] responding so maybe she was still passed out.
[13:37] Eventually she woke up in that hotel room alone, naked, laying
[13:43] in Doctor Lukes bed with absolutely 0 memory of how she
[13:48] got there. Ke$ha's own version of events
[13:51] have this big gap in it from when she was kicked out of the
[13:54] after party right up until waking up.
[13:57] So I guess we'll start from there.
[13:59] It was midday when she woke up in the hotel room feeling like
[14:03] quote she was going to die. She said my body was aching and
[14:08] I was vomiting up green stomach acid.
[14:10] I crawled to the bathroom and just laid on the bathroom floor.
[14:14] According to the hotel's billing records, she called her mum
[14:18] around 2:00 PM on the hotel phone and on this call, Ke$ha
[14:22] told her mum that she had blacked out last night at a
[14:24] party with Doctor Luke and she thinks she needs to go to the
[14:27] hospital. PB specifically remembers Ke$ha
[14:30] saying that she quote felt weird down there and Ke$ha seemed to
[14:36] think that she had had sex with Doctor Luke.
[14:38] But instead of rushing to the emergency room like she
[14:41] initially wanted to, Ke$ha stayed there in that hotel room.
[14:45] She was there for about 10 hours and she didn't leave until just
[14:49] after 1:00 AM. During this time that she was in
[14:52] the hotel room, she ordered room service, she bought a film to
[14:56] watch, and she made a few different calls including
[14:58] another call to her mom to update her on like the change of
[15:02] plans, the fact that she was just staying at the hotel and
[15:04] trying to recover. During the second call, she told
[15:07] her mom that she wasn't going to go to the hospital, but she was
[15:10] going to ask her friend Julianne to come and pick her up from the
[15:13] hotel instead. And when this friend arrived,
[15:16] Ke$ha was once again complaining to her about this pain and
[15:20] discomfort down there. And she even said I maybe was
[15:24] fucked. Also, during this car journey,
[15:26] Ke$ha told Julianne about the sober pill that Doctor Luke had
[15:30] given her around the time that she consequently blacked out.
[15:34] It was sounding sketchier and sketchier with every new detail,
[15:37] and so Julianne asked if she wanted to be taken to the police
[15:41] station to tell all of them about this, but Ke$ha said no.
[15:45] By the time Doctor Luke returned to the hotel room at 2:00 AM,
[15:49] Ke$ha was gone. For months after, she would talk
[15:52] to Julianne about that night, always maintaining that things
[15:56] just didn't feel right. She was sure that Doctor Luke
[15:59] had done something to her when she was passed out, or when she
[16:04] was too drunk to consent. It seems that Ke$ha was very
[16:08] wary to tell anyone else other than Julianne or her mother.
[16:12] And even with them, she begged them not to speak a word of it
[16:14] to anyone else, or to go to the police, for fear that this could
[16:17] actually affect her very new, very fragile career in the music
[16:22] industry. Because, devastatingly, that's
[16:24] how it worked for victims for a long, long time.
[16:27] And we're still fighting for a world where that doesn't need to
[16:29] be a concern for victims. Victims and people with stories
[16:32] to share. But Doctor Luke had power in the
[16:35] industry and Ke$ha didn't want this horrid gut feeling to end
[16:40] up blacklisting her from the industry.
[16:42] So she sucked it up and pushed on, even attending parties that
[16:47] Doctor Luke would host at his home with his girlfriend.
[16:50] He had this beautiful actress girlfriend as well.
[16:53] He was dating Jill Latiana and he'd actually told her all about
[16:57] Ke$ha, like throwing up and getting kicked out of the party.
[17:01] But he never mentioned to his girlfriend that 18 year old
[17:05] Ke$ha had slept in his hotel room that night, which is
[17:09] suspicious to omit such a detail.
[17:12] I wouldn't like that if I was his girlfriend.
[17:14] But anyways, despite keeping her mouth shut, Ke$ha's career had
[17:19] still come to a standstill after this incident.
[17:22] She'd hardly done anything since the backing vocals for Paris
[17:26] that Doctor Luke invited her to. And let me remind you, that
[17:30] happened nine days after she arrived in LA.
[17:33] So she gets there, everything's big, it seems promising.
[17:36] She's singing with Paris Hilton, and then a couple of weeks
[17:39] later, Doctor Luke started going distant and called on her.
[17:43] In fact, Ke$ha even thought that he was quite mean to her at this
[17:47] point. She was beginning to think that
[17:49] signing this contract had been a huge mistake and now she was
[17:54] trapped for six albums. So in November, about six weeks
[18:00] after that night at the Mondrian Hotel, Ke$ha and her mum went
[18:04] for lunch with a big time music manager who was looking after
[18:08] Black Eyed Peas at the time. His name was David Sonenburg.
[18:12] And there at this lunch with Sonenburg, PB vented all of
[18:16] their frustrations with Doctor Luke, including the fact that he
[18:19] was currently being horrible to Ke$ha.
[18:21] Apparently he had told her that she wasn't that pretty or good
[18:25] at singing. And there were 1000 other cells
[18:28] that would be thankful to be signed to him.
[18:31] Big shot. But reading over this contract,
[18:34] David Sonnenberg couldn't see a way out of it until PB said,
[18:38] well, if he gave drugs to my daughter, if he had sex with my
[18:42] daughter when she was underage, wouldn't that allow us to
[18:46] terminate the agreement? Well, David Sonnenberg was taken
[18:51] aback because PB had just accused Dr. Luke of raping
[18:56] Ke$ha. This was huge.
[18:59] He was so shocked. He hadn't expected for that to
[19:02] come out of PBS mouth, but now he really felt for the young
[19:06] girl and he wanted to help her. By the time they had finished
[19:09] eating at that lunch meeting, Ke$ha had hired David as her
[19:13] manager and he had agreed to try and get her out of this insane
[19:18] contract with Luke. In April 2006, under David's
[19:22] instruction, a lawyer emailed Doctor Luke alluding to
[19:25] misconduct that he had done to Ke$ha since signing her.
[19:29] They didn't flat out accuse him of rape, but the lawyer did say
[19:32] that if they needed to take him to court to get Ke$ha released
[19:35] from this contract, they would quote undoubtedly notably get
[19:39] into the specifics of the misconduct between an
[19:42] experienced music industry veteran and an 18 year old girl.
[19:46] Doctor Luke read this e-mail and ignored it.
[19:50] He didn't think that these accusations, these allegations
[19:53] were something to worry about. Because you see, at this point
[19:56] in time, Doctor Luke's career was seriously taken off.
[20:00] He was hot shit, and he probably thought that he was untouchable
[20:03] at this point in time because literally everything he touched
[20:06] turned to gold, turned to a number one hit.
[20:08] He had just produced I Kissed a Girl and Hot and Cold for Katy
[20:11] Perry. He produced Girlfriend for Avril
[20:14] Lavigne, Circus for Britney, half of Kelly Clarkson's biggest
[20:18] songs, literally every pop girl wanted to work with him, and he
[20:22] was getting richer and more popular and more powerful by the
[20:26] minute. Ke$ha, in comparison, was not
[20:29] doing so well. She was living in a tiny
[20:31] apartment, making money, waitressing rather than doing
[20:35] music. And she was relying heavily on
[20:37] her mom, actually to give her some financial support.
[20:41] And she lived this way for two years.
[20:44] Remember what I said about all of this?
[20:45] Like kicking off within a week of her arriving in LA and then
[20:48] like within a couple of weeks of her living there, her producer
[20:52] is like, icing her out and being mean to her.
[20:54] And on top of that, she believes that he he raped her or that he
[20:59] did something to her when she was too drunk or when she was
[21:02] passed out or something. She didn't want to work with
[21:05] this man, and it seemed that he didn't want to work with her
[21:08] either. But like I say, after two years
[21:11] of living this way, Ke$ha reached a breaking point.
[21:14] She wasn't ready to give up on her dream of being a musician,
[21:18] but with this horrific contract in place, she had no choice.
[21:23] She either made music with Doctor Luke or she didn't make
[21:26] music at all and she gave up on her dream.
[21:29] So in the summer of 2008, the two of them reconnected and got
[21:34] back in the studio. But it wasn't the warmest of
[21:37] reunions because during the two year off period, Ke$ha had been
[21:42] telling some people around town that Doctor Luke had roofied
[21:46] her. Eventually the word had gotten
[21:47] back to him, and so when they reconnected, he told her that if
[21:51] she wants to work with him again, she quote can't ever say
[21:55] anything like this. This is not true and Ke$ha had
[21:59] no other option than to agree with him and admit fine it
[22:04] didn't happen and then and only then would she be allowed back
[22:08] into the music industry. Oh, and another rule that Doctor
[22:11] Luke had if they were going to work together, he didn't want
[22:14] her to be working with the manager that she had hired.
[22:17] Do you remember David Sonnenberg, the Black Eyed Peas
[22:20] manager who was going to try and help her get out of that six
[22:23] album contract? Well, Doctor Luke must have
[22:26] sensed something there because he essentially made Ke$ha drop
[22:32] David as her manager, which she agreed to because like I said,
[22:36] she wants to work. And now working with Doctor Luke
[22:40] once again, Ke$ha would quickly find herself featured on
[22:43] practically the biggest pop song of 2009, but not in the way that
[22:48] she had hooked. Being back with Doctor Luke
[22:50] meant more opportunities for Ke$ha and also more examples of
[22:55] him taking advantage of her. There was a Flo Rider song
[22:59] floating around at this point in time that had been Co written
[23:02] with Bruno Mars. It was called Right Round Banger
[23:07] of a tune. According to Bruno, it was all
[23:09] about oral sex. I mean, that figures.
[23:12] The lyrics literally are. You spin my head right round
[23:15] when you go down. And these lyrics actually struck
[23:19] Dr. Luke as a little misogynistic.
[23:21] Because this song was originally only sung by Flo Rider, a man,
[23:26] and doctor, Luke thought that this track needed a woman's
[23:30] voice and a woman's point of view in order to make it a hit.
[23:33] So he pitched this song to Ke$ha as a feature, but only as an
[23:38] opportunity, not as a paid credit.
[23:42] To this day, Ke$ha has made $0.00 from that song.
[23:46] It literally went platinum. That makes me so mad and I love
[23:50] that song. I hate it.
[23:52] Like I've played that so many times and Ke$ha's not sent a
[23:55] single penny of my streams. I just find it so mad that this
[23:58] was also pitched as an opportunity for her.
[24:01] Like, it's for exposure. Exposure doesn't pay the rent,
[24:04] honey. And just when you think it can't
[24:06] get any more exploitative, while finishing up recording that
[24:09] song, something really weird happened and it was actually
[24:13] Lady Gaga who witnessed it. Crazy plot development.
[24:17] This actually makes Gaga a new integral character that we will
[24:21] be referencing throughout. At the time, she was also making
[24:25] music with Doctor Luke because I mean, who the hell wasn't?
[24:28] And on the day that they were recording right round at Luke's
[24:31] home studio, Gaga was also also there.
[24:34] In one particular moment, she remembered walking down a hall
[24:37] and spotting through an open bedroom door a girl in her
[24:42] underwear on a bed. And this instantly made Gaga
[24:46] feel weird, because only a few years before, she herself had
[24:50] been sexually assaulted by a record producer.
[24:54] So naturally, she worried for this young girl that Doctor Luke
[24:58] had in her underwear in A room. A little later on, Gaga was in
[25:03] the studio with Luke listening to the mix of right round when
[25:07] the girl who she had just seen in her underwear in a bedroom
[25:10] comes in and excitedly tells Gaga.
[25:13] That's me on that record. Of course, it was Ke$ha.
[25:17] Instantly, Gaga had a gut feeling that something was off
[25:20] here. The nudity, the casualness,
[25:23] Ke$ha being so young. Remember, Luke was in his 30s,
[25:28] and this wouldn't be the only time that someone witnessed
[25:30] Ke$ha and Luke like this. In 2009, Ke$ha was 21, Luke was
[25:36] 35. And on this one particular day,
[25:39] they were held at JFK airport and they were stopped from
[25:42] boarding an early morning flight to LA.
[25:45] The reason being, both of them were trashed the night before.
[25:49] They'd been out celebrating the fact that finally, after three
[25:52] years of being signed to Doctor Luke, he had finally gotten
[25:55] Ke$ha a record deal. She was now signed, signed to
[25:58] RCA, which is owned by Sony. She was still stuck in this six
[26:02] album contract with Doctor Luke. Don't get me wrong, that was a
[26:05] whole separate thing, but at least now she had a record deal.
[26:07] Anyway, she signed this deal. They're celebrating.
[26:11] And on their very last night in New York, they went out
[26:13] partying. And Ke$ha said that after they
[26:16] went back to Luke's apartment to, you know, gather all their
[26:19] things to head to the airport and he told her to snort an
[26:24] unknown substance. Now we're not sure if Luke did
[26:28] some of this mystery drug as well, but either way, when they
[26:32] arrived at the airport they were still both so fucked.
[26:36] Something tells me that Luke was getting them to do cocaine at
[26:38] his apartment to sober up before the flight, but clearly that
[26:42] didn't work. So they weren't allowed on their
[26:44] flight. But eventually they were put on
[26:46] a later one where multiple witnesses spotted the two of
[26:50] them getting together in their plane seats, apparently like
[26:53] full on groping each other like an inappropriate level of PDA.
[26:59] They were packing it on Ke$ha on that flight, threw up in the
[27:04] bathroom and would later say that all of that kissing and
[27:08] groping that people had witnessed on the flight was just
[27:10] another time that Doctor Luke had taken advantage of her in
[27:13] her drunken, drugged out state. But now, with Ke$ha's rise to
[27:19] fame, she was about to go through a whole new nightmare.
[27:23] In 2010, a website called I Leaks started appearing online.
[27:27] One of the founders, a man who went by the name DJ Stolen, had
[27:31] hacked into Ke$ha's iCloud and stolen all of her intimate
[27:36] private pictures and plastered them online for the whole world
[27:41] to see. Suddenly everyone was talking
[27:43] about it, and they weren't saying anything good.
[27:45] Everyone was sharing these pictures around all the tabloids
[27:48] and the freak bloggers like Perez Hilton was spreading these
[27:51] pictures far and wide for clicks and soon it felt like the whole
[27:55] world was humiliating and slut shaming Ke$ha who was already
[28:00] feeling battered by the industry with nowhere to turn for safety.
[28:04] Obviously back then revenge porn wasn't acknowledged the way that
[28:08] it is now, but that's what Perez Hilton and all of these other
[28:11] bloggers and tabloids were openly doing to this young
[28:15] woman, Perez especially. That slimy bitch even got an
[28:19] exclusive leak from the hacker himself and Perez posted to his
[28:23] blog an exclusive stolen porn image.
[28:28] It makes me sick. It was hacked out of this girl's
[28:31] iCloud. Are you fucking serious or?
[28:33] I hate Perez Hilton on a good day, but today revenge porn is
[28:38] an issue not just for celebrities but for everyone and
[28:41] it seems to be a crime increasing every year.
[28:44] Since 2023 there's been a 106% increase in calls made to
[28:50] revenge porn helplines and the overwhelming majority of victims
[28:54] are young women. Today I want to give a platform
[28:57] to the revenge porn helpline. It's auk based charity that can
[29:01] aid you with legal advice, emotional support when you need
[29:05] it, and even getting the image removed.
[29:07] So far they've had 305,000 images removed.
[29:12] Revenge porn is one of the most psychologically traumatizing
[29:16] things that someone can be put through, and while I hope that
[29:19] you never will, if you ever do go through something like that
[29:22] on top of going to the police, do reach out to these helplines.
[29:26] You deserve the support. You are a victim of a violating
[29:30] crime. One of the most human qualities
[29:33] a person can have is trust and it's never your or fault that
[29:37] someone betrayed that. For my international listeners
[29:40] that might be going through this as well, please search up
[29:43] helplines in your country because they are out there.
[29:46] The one that we just mentioned is only UK but there's one in
[29:49] America under the CCRI Safety Center and on their website you
[29:53] can find the number to the helpline.
[29:55] Both links to the websites will be in the description of this
[29:58] episode. You're not alone in this and I
[30:00] promise it's not forever. You will have a full and happy
[30:04] life to live after a short while after after Ke$ha's intimate
[30:07] photos were leaked and she found herself genuinely at one of her
[30:11] lowest points, her life took a sharp U-turn when her debut
[30:15] album was released to huge success.
[30:19] By now it was 2010, five years after that night at the Mondrian
[30:23] Hotel, and Ke$ha's relationship with Doctor Luke seemed to be
[30:27] kind of patching back up. She'd actually managed to
[30:30] negotiate her contract from six albums down to five, so he'd
[30:34] done her a little bit of a favor there.
[30:36] And he he was even helping her mum PB get back into the
[30:39] songwriting business. He was hooking her up with
[30:42] writing gigs for people like Miley Cyrus.
[30:44] As for the rape accusations, it seemed like everyone just wanted
[30:48] to act like it never happened, but that wouldn't last long.
[30:52] Remember David Sonnenberg, the manager that Ke$ha had hired?
[30:56] Black Eyed Peas manager who was going to try and help her get
[30:58] out the contract, but Doctor Lukeman had dropped this manager
[31:01] there. Well, now that Ke$ha had
[31:03] released her debut album and she was famous, she was hot shit.
[31:07] David Sonnenberg, former manager, was pissed honestly,
[31:11] because he was meant to be her manager.
[31:13] He should be taking a cut of this newfound popularity and all
[31:17] of these sales. He felt cheated of this, and so
[31:21] in 2011 David filed A lawsuit saying that Doctor Luke forced
[31:26] Ke$ha to stop working with him and pressured her into dropping
[31:29] him as her manager. The whole thing went to court
[31:32] and Ke$ha and PB would actually have to give testimony in favor
[31:38] of Doctor Luke. Now, Underoath and on camera,
[31:42] their story about what happened that night at the Mondrian Hotel
[31:46] changed drastically. Both of them denied that Doctor
[31:50] Luke was ever inappropriate with Ke$ha.
[31:53] David's lawyers insisted to the court that Ke$ha and her mother
[31:57] had disclosed to their client, David Sonnenberg, that Doctor
[32:01] Luke had raped Ke$ha. But both women were standing
[32:05] there in court saying that this wasn't true.
[32:06] They never said that. Ke$ha was asked if Doctor Luke
[32:10] had ever roofied her. She said no, and then the
[32:12] lawyers directly asked her. Did you ever tell your mom that
[32:16] you woke up in a hotel room in Doctor Luke's bed and you don't
[32:19] recall what happened? Ke$ha said that she didn't
[32:23] remember, but all she could be certain of is that Doctor Luke
[32:26] had never made sexual advances towards her.
[32:30] Now, the fact that Ke$ha has said all of this underoath could
[32:33] be a huge, huge issue if she ever changes her mind and once
[32:37] again believes that Doctor Luke did something to her in that
[32:40] hotel room. Because in that case, she would
[32:43] have to admit that she had lied underoath in this lawsuit, which
[32:47] is a criminal offence. It's called perjury and it can
[32:51] land you in prison for up to five years in the US.
[32:54] This is so serious. And I say all of this because
[32:56] Ke$ha did change her mind and she did want to go back on what
[33:01] she just said, but not just yet. We'll get back to that in the
[33:05] coming years. Ke$ha and Luke went on to make
[33:07] more music together, but their relationship was becoming
[33:10] increasingly strained and people were catching on, honestly.
[33:15] And then one afternoon at Doctor Luke's Malibu house, everything
[33:18] came to a head. Now, something that I haven't
[33:20] mentioned about Doctor Luke just yet is that he was very involved
[33:25] with how Ke$ha looked. He would insert himself into
[33:30] what she was eating, how she was exercising when she was
[33:32] exercising. He was always putting her on
[33:34] diets. Boo.
[33:36] Leading up to the filming of the music video for Die Young, he
[33:39] actually persuaded her to do a 10 day juice fast, which is a
[33:44] starvation diet, let's be real. And on top of being starved like
[33:47] this, Ke$ha was also being made to work out twice a day with a
[33:51] personal trainer. She was exhausted, she was weak,
[33:55] and this was so incredibly unhealthy both physically and
[33:58] mentally. At some point during this 10 day
[34:01] juice fast, Ke$ha, God forbid, drank a Diet Coke and she said
[34:08] that she really wanted to eat some Turkey.
[34:10] She didn't even fucking eat any Turkey.
[34:12] But in response to what Doctor Luke deemed her weakness, he
[34:17] went off on Ke$ha and made her cry.
[34:20] He even followed up with an e-mail to her new manager.
[34:24] This time the manager was Doctor Luke approved saying quote Ke$ha
[34:29] better keep her diet A list. Songwriters don't want to work
[34:33] with Ke$ha because of her weight.
[34:35] Now I find that really hard to believe honestly.
[34:38] Even for 2012 when weight shaming was genuinely
[34:41] everywhere. In my opinion, I think this just
[34:44] feels like another excuse for Doctor Luke to be able to
[34:47] control and humiliate Ke$ha by claiming that her weight and her
[34:52] body is affecting his income, his work.
[34:56] Bear in mind, this is one of the biggest pop stars of the moment.
[34:59] Like we were all singing along to Ke$ha when we were younger.
[35:02] I really don't think it was affecting her ability to be a
[35:05] talented little superstar. But Ke$ha said that Luke told
[35:09] her he didn't care how she did it, she just needed to get
[35:12] skinny. She said, and I quote, if it was
[35:15] bulimia, anorexia, cocaine, he didn't care.
[35:18] And he didn't stop at just verbal remarks either.
[35:21] He was literally counting the number of coconut waters that
[35:24] she would drink in a day, he would make her exercise while
[35:27] the rest of the crew were eating lunch, and he even one time when
[35:31] they were in a restaurant, slapped a fork from her mouth.
[35:35] During the filming of the Die Young music video, he was
[35:37] getting frustrated once again with Ke$ha's body and how she
[35:40] looked. She still wasn't skinny enough
[35:43] for him, she didn't curve in the right areas that he thought that
[35:46] she should be curving in, and he told the director that she
[35:49] looked like a fucking refrigerator.
[35:52] Well, if it's curves in all the right places that he's looking
[35:55] for, he must be a fucking idiot to think that a tender juice
[35:58] cleanse could starve a body into a whole different bone
[36:02] structure. Obviously all of this constant
[36:05] criticism took a huge toll on Ke$ha and in 2011 she was
[36:10] admitted to a facility for bulimia and she also told the
[36:14] staff and and her loved ones at this point in time that she
[36:17] didn't want to be left alone in a room with Doctor Luke ever
[36:20] again. Her manager even sent an e-mail
[36:23] to a colleague at the time about how cruel Dr. Luke really was to
[36:27] Ke$ha, saying I've seen a good deal of shit in my life but
[36:30] nothing like this ever. It was like Luke was abusing
[36:34] Ke$ha honestly, just for the sake of it at this point, just
[36:37] because he enjoyed it. It seems that all of the sexual
[36:41] stuff that was happening in the beginning had stopped by now.
[36:44] That was more when she was young, around 1819 years old,
[36:47] which is gross in itself. But by this point in their
[36:51] working relationship, they both can't stand each other and Luke
[36:54] is genuinely just bullying Ke$ha, making her life and her
[36:58] career miserable just because. It's possible that this could be
[37:03] down to a bruised ego. You know, like when a lad starts
[37:06] trying to chat you up and then you reject him and he turns mean
[37:09] and starts like insulting you, saying that you're not even fit
[37:11] anywhere. They do it to try to feel like
[37:14] they can claw back some control of the situation.
[37:16] You rejected them, but like, I didn't even want you anywhere.
[37:19] Some people might interpret Luke's behavior in that way, I
[37:23] don't know. But now the bullying was so bad
[37:26] that Ke$ha was checked into rehab for a debilitating case of
[37:30] bulimia and shattered self esteem.
[37:32] And then 11 days later, Ke$ha's mom, PB, followed her into the
[37:37] facility seeking treatment for alcoholism.
[37:40] Now, we haven't touched on PB's personal struggles much, but
[37:44] there was a lot going on for her during all of this too, and we
[37:48] need to talk about it. So up until now, PB had been
[37:51] helping out, writing on Ke$ha's and other people's songs.
[37:54] But over time, she found herself being pushed out.
[37:57] Doctor Luke and his team found PB's writing quite outdated, and
[38:02] honestly, so did Ke$ha. They were starting to use other
[38:05] writers, giving PB less and less work.
[38:08] And in turn, her income obviously took a hit.
[38:11] She began relying on her daughter's income to keep her
[38:14] financially afloat, and it was turning her bitter.
[38:18] She felt left behind and discarded.
[38:21] But I'll be honest, it didn't come out of nowhere.
[38:23] This wasn't for no reason. Towards the end of PB working
[38:26] very closely with Ke$ha, she had started to act like a stage mom.
[38:30] She was quite overbearing in these sessions and she clearly
[38:34] felt entitled to her daughter's success.
[38:37] In her eyes, she had nurtured Ke$ha the star.
[38:42] She took her to all the different meetings in all these
[38:44] different states. And so PB felt like she deserved
[38:47] a cut. She deserved to be involved with
[38:49] all of this, but her daughter was getting tired of always
[38:53] having her mum in her business, quite literally, and so she
[38:57] asked her to back off to go and find a job at Costco or
[39:01] something. And PB was offended.
[39:03] She was really mad, actually. She went off on Ke$ha saying
[39:06] that all of her best songs are only her best songs because she
[39:09] had written them. PB had written them, but none of
[39:13] her arguing could bring the work back.
[39:15] So now, financially struggling and and bitter not only about
[39:19] losing her work, but about losing her daughter to the
[39:22] industry, PB starts drinking more and more.
[39:26] She had struggled with alcoholism on and off for a
[39:28] very, very long time, for years. But this whole thing triggered A
[39:32] relapse. And when PB was very drunk late
[39:35] at night, she would load up her emails and give her enemies what
[39:39] for. People began waking up to PB's
[39:42] rageful midnight emails, their inboxes damned with drama.
[39:47] But one of these emails was about to cause irreversible
[39:51] damage. On the 30th of October 2013, she
[39:55] emailed Doctor Luke's lawyer saying the following.
[39:58] I am done with you dishonest show business assholes.
[40:02] Either Luke releases Ke$ha from all legal contracts and gives me
[40:05] back all of my publishing rights, as in the money, or we
[40:10] Ke$ha and I tell the truth. Luke date raped Ke$ha when she
[40:15] was in. At 18, Nikki Hilton's birthday,
[40:17] Paris Hilton's house, Luke gave Ke$ha pills.
[40:21] She ended up naked in his H2 days later, no longer a virgin.
[40:26] Do we want all of this to come out?
[40:28] Which, by the way, the virgin thing coming out in this e-mail
[40:31] is the first that we'd heard as well.
[40:33] It hadn't come up in our research before we'd gotten to
[40:35] this e-mail. But you know, of course it makes
[40:38] sense. Ke$ha was very young, I guess,
[40:40] like she could have been a virgin.
[40:42] But anyway, PB signed off this e-mail saying if I wind end up
[40:45] dead, trust me, it's in writing to call you and Doctor Luke have
[40:51] a nice life. So that e-mail hit Doctor Luke's
[40:54] lawyers inbox. The thing is though, at this
[40:57] point people were used to receiving PB's Ridge emails.
[41:01] They would come through so often and they were always honestly
[41:05] quite nonsensical, just like drunk ramblings, and people had
[41:09] begun to just ignore them when they came in.
[41:12] So as usual, when this one hit the inbox to Luke and his lawyer
[41:16] ignored it, they didn't even open it and read it.
[41:18] And Luke carried on climbing the career ladder until the summer
[41:23] of 2014, when he was handed a letter that not only threatened
[41:27] to end his career, but his entire life as he knew it.
[41:32] And this one couldn't be ignored because it had come from a team
[41:35] of lawyers and from Ke$ha herself.
[41:39] She was ready to bring him down. By 2014, Ke$ha was physically,
[41:44] emotionally, and mentally done with Doctor Luke.
[41:48] She just wanted out of that contract for good and to be away
[41:51] from him. Not only was she certain that
[41:54] this guy had raped her when she was 18, but she had put up with
[41:58] years of financial and verbal abuse from him.
[42:01] He had terrorized her mind and her body with these torturous
[42:05] diets and he was the root cause of her being institutionalized
[42:10] for bulimia. So she hired some lawyers and
[42:14] handed Sony a major lawsuit that accused Dr. Luke of date rape,
[42:19] sexual assault, battery and harassment, as well as
[42:24] emotional, physical and verbal abuse of over 10 years.
[42:28] These are heavy career ending claims, right?
[42:32] Well, not if she went about it this way.
[42:35] See, the lawsuit was arguing that the record label Sony had
[42:40] enabled Dr. Luke to do all of this to her.
[42:43] Sony is a huge corporation that she realistically couldn't go up
[42:48] against and win. She needed to drop Sony from the
[42:52] lawsuit and go after Doctor Luke alone if she wanted any real
[42:56] chance of winning this. And I'm going to be so honest, I
[42:59] feel like she'd found herself a real cowboy legal team because
[43:03] they kept giving such bad advice and they were hindering this
[43:07] case all on their own. Even deciding to direct the
[43:11] lawsuit at Sony claiming that they enabled the abuse rather
[43:15] than just going after the abuser was an interesting choice, but
[43:19] there's more to come. Either way, the lawsuit became
[43:22] just against Doctor Luke. And by the 14th of October 2014,
[43:27] a week after the case was filed, it was made public and the case
[43:31] went global. It was in the papers, it was on
[43:34] the news, it was worldwide, it was Ke$ha versus Doctor Luke.
[43:39] As this lawsuit went public, Ke$ha's lawyer also did a press
[43:43] talk, giving interviews on Good Morning America among other
[43:47] shows, where he stated Luke fed her alcohol while she was
[43:51] underage, then gave her the sober pill.
[43:54] Turned out to be GHB, a date rape drug.
[43:57] She woke up the next day naked in his bed, saw and knew that he
[44:02] had raped her. And you know what?
[44:03] The lawyer saying that much on TV is fair enough, because all
[44:07] of what he'd said there is in line with Ke$ha's own state and
[44:10] her account of events. But in other public comments,
[44:14] the lawyer expanded on that, calling Luke a predator and
[44:18] comparing him to Bill Cosby. Now there's implications there
[44:22] that Ke$ha herself had never made.
[44:25] Her lawyer was doing damage to their own case by freestyling on
[44:30] national TV like this. Ke$ha later on had to sign an
[44:34] affidavit that said that she had not authorized her lawyer to be
[44:38] making all of those comments. But the lawyers behavior aside,
[44:43] the bones of this lawsuit made Doctor Luke look like a bad guy.
[44:47] So his team hit back immediately by releasing the tips of Ke$ha
[44:52] and her mum swearing Underoath that he had never assaulted her.
[44:57] Ke$ha's lawyers quickly responded to this, arguing that
[45:00] she had lied in those videos. She had lied underoath and said
[45:04] all of that because Luke had pressured her into doing so.
[45:08] Her lawyers even came out and said that there were other
[45:11] victims of Doctor Luke out there and they would also be coming
[45:15] forward with their story soon. But they didn't.
[45:19] Kasha stood alone as the only victim.
[45:23] This was a huge claim for her lawyer to make, and since
[45:26] literally no one else came forward, people began to doubt
[45:30] its validity. And so, in an attempt to prove
[45:33] it, the lawyer posted a tweet naming another one of Doctor
[45:37] Luke's victims. It was Lady Gaga.
[45:40] Remember early run? In the episode, we talked about
[45:43] how Gaga had been assaulted by a producer very early on in her
[45:46] career. That's why she was so worried
[45:48] for Ke$ha when she saw her in her underwear in Luke's house.
[45:52] Well, Ke$ha's lawyer was now using Lady Gaga's assault to
[45:58] support his case. The only problem being it wasn't
[46:01] true. I mean, Gaga had been assaulted,
[46:04] yes, but by a different producer, not by Doctor Luke.
[46:09] She was frankly offended that her trauma had been rehashed,
[46:13] twisted and distorted on such a public platform as Twitter.
[46:18] She immediately got Ke$ha's lawyer to retract his statement
[46:21] and apology and Ke$ha text Gaga saying.
[46:24] I just want to let you know that I had nothing to do with that
[46:27] and I would never take advantage of your pen.
[46:30] So despite there being no other victims that came forward to
[46:34] join Ke$ha in the lawsuit, she still had a lot of public
[46:37] support, including Miss Gaga who tweeted.
[46:40] There are people all over the world who love you at Ke$ha
[46:44] Rose, and I can say, truly, I am in awe of your bravery.
[46:48] And quickly after that, a bunch of other celebrities who had all
[46:52] either worked with Doctor Luke or at the very least, they'd met
[46:55] him and they knew him from LA circles.
[46:58] You know, people like Miley Cyrus, Adele, Kelly Clarkson,
[47:02] Taylor Swift, all publicly came to Ke$ha's defense and showed
[47:07] their support for her. But there was one more person
[47:10] who everyone was waiting to hear from, but they were staying
[47:14] weirdly silent through all of this, and that was Katy Perry.
[47:18] Remember the other brand new talent that Doctor Luke had
[47:21] discovered around the exact same time as Ke$ha?
[47:24] But before Katie could come out and say a word, text between
[47:28] Ke$ha and Lady Gaga got leaked. And it's big.
[47:32] So 1 evening, Ke$ha and Gaga are texting back and forth.
[47:36] Ke$ha says I'm really upset with Katy Perry.
[47:39] She could bring the whole thing to a head, but she won't.
[47:42] And she follows up saying that Katie was raped by the same man.
[47:46] Gaga replies she's probably really afraid to lose
[47:50] everything. You are really strong standing
[47:52] up to him. She's not as strong as you yet,
[47:55] Ke$ha responds. I need to find sympathy and
[47:58] empathy for her. She's so mean.
[48:00] It's hard. And Gaga says I know she's mean.
[48:04] She probably hasn't even accepted it yet.
[48:06] So Ke$ha believes that Katy Perry is another victim of
[48:11] Doctor Luke's. In February of 2016, a judge
[48:15] told Ke$ha that he didn't see the point in ending the Doctor
[48:18] Luke contract for her because by this point it had actually been
[48:22] heavily negotiated on both sides and some adjustments had been
[48:26] made. One of which was that she was
[48:29] now able to work with other producers just as long as they
[48:33] were also under Sony. You know, the same place that
[48:36] the same record label that she has, but she was no longer
[48:40] trapped with just Doctor Luke. Realistically, the biggest
[48:44] reason why the contract wasn't waived is because Ke$ha had
[48:48] sworn Underoath that Doctor Luke had never raped her, and that is
[48:52] borderline impossible to compete with.
[48:55] But even though the legal courts weren't necessarily on her side,
[48:59] the court of public opinion really was.
[49:02] In 2016, hashtag free Ke$ha was trending.
[49:05] Anyone that collaborated with Doctor Luke was being dragged
[49:08] and cancelled. Even Doctor Luke himself had to
[49:11] start releasing music under an alias to avoid backlash.
[49:16] Everyone had heard Ke$ha's story and everyone believed her.
[49:20] She posted on Instagram explaining why she had lied
[49:23] underoath that first time. Right.
[49:26] I got offered my freedom. If I were to lie, I would have
[49:30] to apologize publicly and say that I never got raped.
[49:34] This is what happens behind closed doors.
[49:37] I will not take back the truth. I would rather let the truth
[49:40] ruin my career than lie for a monster ever again.
[49:45] But if she wanted a legal win and if she wanted out of the
[49:48] contract, she needed to switch up her strategy.
[49:51] So she fired her legal team, who would put their foot in their
[49:54] mouth more time times than they can count.
[49:56] And she hired a more professional lot.
[49:59] You know, less showbiz and jazz hands, more paperwork and
[50:02] academics. In 2017, during the next round
[50:06] of legal hearings, a bunch of people were questioned
[50:08] underoath, including Lady Gaga, Katy Perry and rape experts.
[50:14] So we'll start with Lady Gaga because she actually went off on
[50:18] Doctor Luke's lawyer in her questioning.
[50:20] He had told Gaga to imagine if a false rape accusation had been
[50:24] made against her own dad, I guess trying to make her feel
[50:28] sorry for Doctor Luke. And she snapped back to the
[50:31] lawyer saying, well, how would I know that my father didn't do
[50:34] it? And for two hours, she continues
[50:37] to stick up for her girl. Gaga refuses to back down or
[50:41] even consider Ke$ha an unreliable victim.
[50:44] She tells them, why on earth would this girl tell the entire
[50:48] world that this happened? Why on earth do you know what
[50:51] it's like for survivors? And towards the end of her
[50:54] questioning, she was really sick of this lawyer telling him,
[50:57] don't you roll your eyes at me, you should be ashamed of
[51:00] yourself. And then we have Katy Perry's
[51:03] questioning. And this is where it gets even
[51:05] more conflicting. Remember, Ke$ha accused Dr. Luke
[51:09] of having raped Katie as well. Well, in court, Katy was asked
[51:14] if this is true, and she said no Underoath.
[51:17] She said that Doctor Luke had never assaulted her, never made
[51:21] advances on her. The lawyer asked do you believe
[51:25] that sexual assault or rape is consistent with Doctor Luke's
[51:28] character? And again, Katy Perry said no.
[51:32] I guess there's the possibility that she too could be lying
[51:36] underoath like Ke$ha did the first time.
[51:38] But Katie has maintained this for years, even out of court.
[51:42] I mean she literally collabed with Doctor Luke for her most
[51:46] recent album that came out last year and we all know that that
[51:48] flopped, but I digress. Back to the trial.
[51:51] Both Ke$ha and Doctor Luke called on sexual assault and
[51:55] rape experts to support each of their cases.
[51:58] Ke$ha has ruled that her account was consistent with a drug
[52:02] facilitated sexual assault. So evidence for her side
[52:06] essentially. But could you guess that Doctor
[52:08] Luke's expert would somehow rule the exact opposite?
[52:12] Doctor Renee Binder said the facts in this lawsuit are more
[52:16] consistent with a false allegation of rape.
[52:19] Now that's tricky because you've got 2 very similar, very
[52:23] qualified experts that are saying polar opposites until 1/3
[52:29] expert really questioned Ke$ha's credibility.
[52:33] Dr. Luke had hired a pharmacy professor and toxicologist who
[52:37] was brought in with the intention of debunking the sober
[52:40] pill allegations that Ke$ha claimed was a date rape drug.
[52:46] Now this toxicology expert explained how GHB and Rohypnol,
[52:50] the two usual date rape drugs, only really come in a liquid or
[52:55] a powder form. He said that DH could be put
[52:59] into a capsule so that you can like take it as a pill, but that
[53:02] pill would be huge. It would be like an inch long.
[53:05] He said it would be like a horse pill and it would be really
[53:08] difficult to swallow. So that would have been a detail
[53:11] that stood out to Ke$ha at the time.
[53:13] Surely to say that this report cast doubt on Ke$ha's story
[53:17] would be an understatement. But I mean, keep in mind this
[53:20] guy was privately hired by Doctor Luke.
[53:24] There were also two days in 2017 where Luke's lawyers were
[53:28] allowed to directly question Ke$ha herself.
[53:31] And in my opinion, it was with the intention to wear her down
[53:35] and and break her. Ke$ha recalls flashes of
[53:39] traveling in a car and and her top coming off over her head,
[53:43] which were both details that she never filed in her lawsuit
[53:48] before. This is only coming out in these
[53:50] questionings in 2017, and that doesn't look good.
[53:54] The details of her story changing like that, new details
[53:57] emerging. The lawyers kept picking her
[54:00] story apart like this until she just gave up, saying that she
[54:04] actually had no memory of being at the hotel with Doctor Luke or
[54:08] of any kind of assault happening.
[54:11] Now. This was taken as an admission
[54:13] that, well, Ke$ha must have made all this up then.
[54:16] But not so fast, because hadn't Ke$ha literally been saying that
[54:20] since the start? She had always said that she had
[54:24] no idea if he had actually done something.
[54:26] She just knew that when she woke up that day, she felt violently
[54:30] ill and her genitals hurt. She had a gut feeling that she
[54:35] had been taken advantage of the night before.
[54:37] She had never said that she remembered the assault taking
[54:40] place. They hadn't broken her down to
[54:43] an admission. She is literally saying what
[54:45] she'd always said. This isn't new information, but
[54:48] everyone was acting like it was. Everyone was acting like they
[54:51] just, you know, done a gotcha moment on Ke$ha.
[54:54] Regardless, the chances of her winning this case over a gut
[54:58] feeling from 18 years ago were very slim.
[55:02] It was a very expensive uphill battle that she was likely to
[55:05] lose anywhere. Then, as the trial was set to
[55:08] come to a head on the 22nd of June 20, 23, it was announced
[55:13] that it was all over. That would be no big trial.
[55:16] Kesher and Dr. Luke had reached a settlement.
[55:20] Neither party was going to pay out any kind of money to the
[55:23] other. Neither of them were forced to
[55:25] sign any kind of NDA or whatever.
[55:27] But what was particularly surprising was that the two of
[55:30] them released a joint statement together.
[55:34] I don't think I've ever really seen anything like this before
[55:37] other than, you know, like when influenza couples break up and
[55:40] they both post the statement together, but not after a
[55:43] fucking rape accusation. This is insane.
[55:46] It's split into two parts and you get Ke$ha's statement first,
[55:49] which read only God knows what happened that night.
[55:53] As I have always said, I cannot recount everything that
[55:56] happened. I am looking forward to closing
[55:59] the door on this chapter of my life and beginning a new one.
[56:02] I wish nothing but peace to all parties involved.
[56:06] And then Dr. Luke has the final say on this joint statement
[56:10] where he writes. While I appreciate Ke$ha again
[56:13] acknowledging that she cannot recount what happened that night
[56:15] in 2005, I am absolutely certain that nothing happened.
[56:20] I never drugged or assaulted her and would never do that to
[56:23] anyone. For the sake of my family, I
[56:26] have vigorously fought to clear my name for nearly ten years.
[56:30] It is time for me to put this difficult matter behind me and
[56:32] move on with my life. I wish Ke$ha well.
[56:36] So I guess that's how Ke$ha versus Doctor Luke ends.
[56:40] Strictly speaking, no one lost, but no one won either.
[56:45] As for that contract, that watertight contract that no one
[56:48] could get Ke$ha out of, she would still have to complete the
[56:52] five agreed albums, the final of which was released in May 2023.
[56:58] That is so recent, and her final album with Doctor Luke was aptly
[57:03] titled Gag Order. By December of that year, 2023,
[57:07] the contract officially ended, 18 years after she had first
[57:12] signed it. To this day, Luke is still out
[57:16] there as Doctor Luke and a bunch of other aliases, collabing
[57:19] quietly with some of the biggest artists in the industry.
[57:23] He is still a hotshot. He is still in high demand
[57:25] despite all of these accusations.
[57:27] I'm going to be so honest, a lot of the time, Hollywood doesn't
[57:30] fucking care, and that makes me sick.
[57:31] But yeah, he's, he's doing fine. He's still Doctor Luke.
[57:35] As for Ke$ha, in September of 2024, she actually launched her
[57:39] own record label called Ke$ha Records.
[57:42] After being controlled for her entire career.
[57:45] Now she is finally free and she has the control back.
[57:50] Thank you so much for tuning into this episode of Outlaw
[57:53] Podcast and also thank you once again to nod VPN for sponsoring
[57:57] this episode of Outlaw on YouTube.
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[58:12] comment so that we can continue the conversation.
[58:15] If you're listening on a podcast platform rate as five stars,
[58:18] leave us a comment as well. Famously I've been reading the
[58:20] Spotify comments and all that being said, I will see you in
[58:24] the next episode. Bye.

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