Kesha: Serve C*nt & Prevail
Alex Cooper interviews Kesha on Call Her Daddy, where the pop star discusses her decade-long legal battle to reclaim her music rights, her healing journey after years of body image struggles and public scrutiny, and her current era of freedom, sovereignty, and reclaimed sexuality. Kesha reflects on her upbringing, career evolution, spiritual practices, and upcoming music with remarkable candor and self-awareness.
Summary
In this Call Her Daddy episode, Alex Cooper sits down with Grammy-nominated musician Kesha for what Kesha describes as her first long-form interview since emerging from nearly a decade of litigation. The conversation spans Kesha's unusual upbringing — born to a single mother who was a songwriter for artists like Dolly Parton and Johnny Cash — and her mother's deliberate choice to conceive a Pisces child. Kesha discusses how her punk and rock influences (Bowie, Iggy Pop, Alice Cooper, Beastie Boys) shaped her iconic glitter-and-mascara aesthetic and her 'silly crazy goose' persona from the very beginning of her career.
A major thread throughout the interview is Kesha's nine-year legal battle to reclaim the rights to her voice and likeness after signing a record deal at 18 that signed them away 'in perpetuity in the universe.' She describes the emotional toll of that period — profound loneliness, anxiety embedded in her bone marrow, and having her medical records, therapy notes, and personal communications published publicly. She candidly admits she questioned the point of living during that time. The 2024 tour she undertook as a free, independent artist — including a sold-out Madison Square Garden show where the crowd cheered for nearly 11 minutes straight — became a profound healing experience, which she describes as feeling her heart physically open.
Kesha discusses her extensive healing journey in detail, including psychedelic-assisted therapy, samurai training on 'Samurai Island' with a 64th-generation samurai, daily gratitude meditations by Dr. Joe Dispenza, and naked sunbathing as an act of resistance against body shame. She speaks openly about a past eating disorder, a filler phase she regrets, and years of internalizing negative commentary about her body before arriving at genuine self-love. She also reveals she reclaimed her ability to experience orgasm after losing it during the stress of litigation, and now describes herself as 'mostly celibate' while 'calling in a king' through a practice she links to gratitude meditation.
The conversation covers Kesha's dating history with humor and self-awareness — including her attraction to 'red flags,' two athletes she realized she couldn't be with because she's sapiosexual, a possibly homeless boyfriend, and being broken up with after attending a Taylor Swift post-Coachella party. She also discusses breaking off an engagement during COVID while facing mounting legal bills, describing the decision as honoring her gut even though it was painful.
Kesha reveals several personal idiosyncrasies: she collects human teeth (sent by fans) and makes art and jewelry from them, carries her placenta in a necklace, and is working on a book called 'The Alchemy of Pop.' She expresses deep gratitude for the LGBTQ+ community, which she credits as foundational to her career, and describes designing her tours as 'queer church' or 'pop church for all people.' She has new music out including a single called 'Origami' celebrating her reclaimed sexuality, with more music in progress. The interview closes with Kesha reflecting that for the first time in a long time, she feels safe in her body and in the world.
Key Insights
- Kesha signed a record deal at 18 that signed away the rights to her voice and likeness 'in perpetuity in the universe,' and spent nine years in litigation fighting to reclaim them — a period she describes as so isolating she questioned the point of living.
- Kesha argues that her party girl persona was a genuine but partial reflection of herself, and that single choices leaned into what was commercially working, creating a caricature that obscured her intelligence and other dimensions of her personality.
- Kesha describes the MSG sold-out show on her Freedom Tour as a physical turning point — she felt her heart physically open when the crowd cheered for nearly 11 minutes, which she credits as more healing for her than for any fan in attendance.
- Kesha claims she lost the ability to orgasm during the stress of litigation and has since reclaimed her sexuality, describing herself as 'mostly celibate' and linking sexual pleasure to gratitude meditation as a deliberate reprogramming of neural pathways.
- Kesha argues that anger in women functions as a somatic signal of a violated boundary, and that suppressing women's anger keeps them from being their most boundaried and powerful selves — and that society's discomfort with female anger means no one ever asks what caused it.
- Kesha contends that joy itself is an act of resistance, and that her career's silly, joyful image has been used to discount her talent, but she views vibrating at 'the frequency of silly goose shit' as genuinely magical and subversive.
- Kesha describes having her therapy notes, medical records, and all personal communications published publicly during litigation as a consequence of speaking up for herself — something she now frames as freeing, comparing it to being naked in her backyard.
- Kesha states that during her eating disorder period, Timber was simultaneously the number one song in the world — a juxtaposition she describes as a wake-up moment that led her to cancel a tour, start a band called Yeast Infection, and play only dive bars before seeking treatment.
- Kesha argues that the cultural narrative that a romantic partner 'completes' you is something she actively works to dismantle, and that her post-litigation sovereignty required learning to feel whole independently before seeking partnership.
- Kesha reveals she carries her placenta in a necklace — her mother fought the hospital for it, stored it in the oven and then the basement for decades — as part of a broader embrace of esoteric ritual that she says connects her to a spiritual realm she prefers to inhabit.
- Kesha describes breaking off her engagement during COVID as honoring an unavoidable gut signal, framing it as ultimately selfless despite feeling selfish — she cites her partner being 'satisfied' while she is 'wildly ambitious' as the fundamental incompatibility.
- Kesha states that Cassie Ventura, who was in the room when Tik Tok was recorded, sent her a bouquet before her MSG show — and that witnessing Cassie's apparent freedom and flourishing after her own highly publicized ordeal made the night among the most emotionally significant of Kesha's life.
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