Kesha Frees Herself

With a new album, her own record label, and a 10-year plan to upend the music industry, the liberated pop star says anyone with "deep, dark secrets better run."

- SUZY EXPOSITO

Before Kesha got The Call, she was frolicking naked with her friends off the coast of Zihuatanejo, Mexico - a sunkissed Lady Godiva on a jet ski, cutting through the ocean waves. Her entourage of 12 friends followed her lead, shedding their beachwear to evade tan lines as they scanned the water for sharks and manta rays.

It was the pop star's 37th birthday, and the dawning of her most liberated year yet. "I got a big wake-up call to start living like a free woman," she says of the divine intervention. "But I also got a literal phone call." That one had happened three months earlier, when her lawyers phoned to say that it was official: On March 6, her birthday, for the first time in 19 years, Kesha would reclaim the legal rights to her own voice.

Kesha was just 18 years old in 2005 when she first signed an ill-fated six-album deal with songwriter and music producer Lukasz Gottwald, better known as Dr. Luke. Nine years later, Kesha dropped a bombshell when she filed a civil suit against Gottwald for infliction of emotional distress, sexual harassment, and assault.

Gottwald, famous for his work with superstars like Katy Perry and Rihanna, denied the allegations and filed a defamation suit against Kesha in 2014. Kesha, still beholden to the terms she signed at 18, continued to release albums to fulfill her contractual obligations - the last of which was released in May of 2023. A chilling kiss-off of a record, produced by Rick Rubin, it was cheekily titled Gag Order.