This short year has been a difficult one for Kesha, who has been embroiled in what has become a very public legal battle with producer Dr. Luke. (Go here for an explainer.) A few weeks ago, when Kesha’s request for an injunction was denied, plenty of celebrities reached out to support her. Kelly Clarkson, who worked with Dr. Luke on her breakout single, “Since You’ve Been Gone,” sent out a vague but clearly critical tweet. Now, she’s appeared on the Australian radio show “Kyle and Jackie O,” saying much more pointed things about the producer.
After an extensive conversation about Clarkson’s pregnancy and beliefs on motherhood — a conversation in which she admitted that, just like everyone else, she plants her kid in front of the TV so she has time to go to the bathroom — Clarkson spoke briefly on her own relationship with Dr. Luke, beginning with the basic fact that many musicians don’t like working with him.
“There are a lot of artists who used to work with him who don’t work with him anymore, for pretty solid reasons. He’s just not a good person to me,” she said. “We’ve clashed. I can’t really say anything other than that.”
About Kesha’s specific case, which includes accusations that Dr. Luke sexually abused her, Clarkson refused to comment. “I wasn’t there, I don’t know specifically what happened in their situation, I wasn’t in the room.” She went on, “I can remark on his character, and unfortunately, when you have that poor of a character where so many artists don’t like you or don’t like working with you, that’s not normal.”
She continued to speak about her working relationship with Dr. Luke, which seems to have involved his lying to executives or other artists. “Obviously he’s a talented dude. He’s just lied a lot, and I’ve run into a couple really bad situations. Musically it’s been really hard for me because he’ll just lie to people.” She went on to say that he is “kind of demeaning.”
Perhaps most interestingly, Clarkson said that she worked with Dr. Luke because Sony had told her that they would not release her album unless there was a song produced by him on it, which sounds similar to Kesha’s claims that Sony will not fully promote any work that isn’t made with Dr. Luke. Clarkson said, “I only worked with him because I was blackmailed by my label. They were literally like, ‘We will not put your album out unless you do this.'”
As for Kesha’s specific allegations? “He never did anything like that with me,” Clarkson said.
Listen below beginning at the 1:23:40 mark.