Singer Kesha (formerly known as Ke$ha) has filed a lawsuit against her producer of 10 years, Dr. Luke, for sexual, physical, verbal, and emotional abuse that has allegedly been occurring since she was 18. Dr. Luke, whose real name is Lukasz Gottwald, has been Kesha’s producer for 10 years and is responsible for designing the musical direction of her music through the duration of her career — largely against the creative wishes of the artist herself. Kesha is suing Dr. Luke to get out of her contract with him and all of his companies and for damages as seen fit by the court.
Kesha began 2014 in a rehabilitation center in Illinois, staying for two months to treat her eating disorder and post-traumatic stress disorder. The doctors who treated Kesha named Dr. Luke as the source of her problems, and they determined that a continued relationship would be detrimental to her health. The lawsuit claims that Dr. Luke emotionally abused her into bulimia, calling her a “fat fucking refrigerator” and telling her that she was well below “Hollywood standards.” Aside from the emotional abuse, she claims to have been physically abused by Dr. Luke and also sexually assaulted and raped on a few occasions. Dr. Luke allegedly gave her drugs during many of these occasions in order to assault her when her defenses were low.
Whether or not you’re a fan of Kesha, these allegations are serious and should be taken seriously. Victims are often too afraid to come forward and speak on their behalf, and, in this case, it took Kesha having a life-threatening eating disorder for her to decide to remove her abuser from her life.
Many instances of abuse happen every day, whether it be emotional, verbal, physical, or sexual, and the victims often stay silent. When a high profile case like this comes around, it’s important to empower the people in your life to come forward with their stories of abuse by not being negative about Kesha’s case or those like it. Abuse perpetuates because victims are made to feel like they won’t be believed or supported; therefore, many never receive the help that they deserve. Because Kesha is a public figure, it’s easy to be mean, callous, and sarcastic about her struggle with abuse. However, those types of negative responses would cause other victims to feel just as isolated in their turmoil as Kesha would.
By coming forward and taking a stand against her abuser, Kesha is hopefully empowering others to do the same.
Read the entire complaint filed by Kesha here.