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Artist News Legal Top Stories
Kesha’s claims to Lady Gaga about Katy Perry also part of Dr Luke defamation lawsuit
By Chris Cooke | Published on Thursday 14 June 2018
The focus of the long running legal battle between one-time collaborators Kesha and Dr Luke is now the latter’s defamation lawsuit against the former. Newly revealed court papers relating to that litigation show that among the remarks alleged to be defamatory are comments made by Kesha to Lady Gaga about Luke and Katy Perry.
Kesha, of course, has accused producer Luke of drugging and raping her. He has always denied those allegations, claiming they were made in a bid to help Kesha get out of contractual agreements she had made with his various companies. The dispute resulted in a flurry of lawsuits, with legal action ongoing in three separate US states at one point.
Luke’s defamation lawsuit continues to go through the motions. In court papers seen by gossip site The Blast, it has emerged that his legal action focuses on three allegedly defamatory remarks made by Kesha: the already known allegations that he drugged and raped her, but also text messages to Lady Gaga that alleged he also raped Perry.
The court papers state: “On 26 Feb 2016 [Kesha] sent a text message to Stefani Germanotta pka Lady Gaga which repeated [Kesha’s] false claim that [Luke] had raped her. [Kesha] also falsely asserted that [Luke] had also raped Kathryn Hudson pka Katy Perry. Following this text message conversation, and with [Kesha’s] encouragement, [Lady Gaga] spread negative messages about [Luke] in the press and on social media”.
It’s not the first time that Gaga has been pulled into this dispute. Last year, her people hit out at efforts by Luke’s team to force the pop star to give a deposition in relation to the defamation action. Team Luke sought to question Gaga based on those past text message conversations she had had with Kesha.
Prior to that Kesha’s one time legal rep Mark Geragos courted controversy after Gaga spoke about being raped when she was nineteen and he subsequently suggested that Luke was the rapist. Gaga denied that was the case and Geragos was then also sued for defamation.
With the allegations involving Katy Perry now also public domain, legal reps for Dr Luke issued another statement last night again denying all the claims made by Kesha to date.
That statement reads: “Katy Perry herself confirmed that Dr Luke did not rape her. Kesha’s accusation to the contrary – just like her other outrageous lies about Dr Luke – is baseless and irresponsible, and it is disrespectful to both Katy Perry and Dr Luke”.
The lawyers conclude: “In his defamation lawsuit against Kesha, Dr Luke seeks damages for the harm caused by these malicious falsehoods”.
