Kesha Asserts Dr Luke Owes Her Money, Won't Approve New Songs

Kesha and Dr. Luke have filed new court papers with New York Supreme Court Justice Shirley Kornreich to amend previous claims after courts ruled that she would not be let out of her contract with her alleged abuser.

“You can get a divorce from an abusive spouse,” Kesha‘s legal team wrote in her new countersuit. “You can dissolve a partnership if the relationship becomes irreconcilable. The same opportunity�”to be liberated from the physical, emotional, and financial bondage of a destructive relationship�”should be available to a recording artist. After a February 19, 2016 preliminary injunction hearing, Kesha Rose Sebert is, for the time being, no longer forced to record in the same room with Lukasz “Dr. Luke” Gottwald, the abusive music producer who has had her under contract for the past eleven years. But allowing Kesha to make music outside Dr. Luke’s presence does not free her from her abuser’s control.”

Regarding any new music, she added, “not one song has been approved, no release date has been set, and there has been no agreement on the critical issue of whether the album will be promoted commensurate with an artist of Kesha’s stature and historical success.”

Kesha also claims that Dr. Luke owes her money and finally paid her some of it.

“It was not until Kesha’s counsel recently threatened further legal action that Dr. Luke released certain funds owed to Kesha in December 2016, two years after they were due. Still, he has not paid her all of the amounts owed. Dr. Luke has similarly worked to deprive Kesha of royalties from ‘Timber,’ the multimillion-unit hit that she recorded and co-wrote with Pitbull. Until the issue was raised with the Court, Kesha had received none of the recording royalties or publishing royalties on ‘Timber’ she was owed,” the papers continued.

Kesha ultimately wants to be freed from her contract.

Click inside to read Dr. Luke’s response…

“On February 26, 2016�”one week after losing her motion for preliminary injunction�”Kesha initiated a text message conversation with Stefani Germanotta, the recording artist who is professionally known as ‘Lady Gaga,’” Dr. Luke writes in his papers. “During this text message conversation, Kesha falsely and baselessly asserted that Kesha and another female recording artist (the ‘Other Recording Artist’) had both been raped by Gottwald. Specifically, Kesha told Lady Gaga that ‘she [i.e., the Other Recording Artist] was raped by the same man’ as Kesha. The ‘man’ to whom Kesha referred was Gottwald – as the surrounding context of the text message makes clear. Kesha’s assertions to Lady Gaga were completely false. Gottwald did not rape Kesha, and he did not rape the Other Recording Artist.”

Here’s what Kesha is proposing:

“To protect young, newly discovered recording artists from this precise manner of exploitation in quasi-lifetime un-severable professional relationships, California labor law requires all music contracts to end within seven years of execution,” states her proposed counterclaim. “The Court dismissed certain of Kesha’s First Amended Counterclaims on the grounds that Kesha could not avail herself of New York laws that protect against abuses in the employment context because the alleged events did not occur in the state or city of New York. To also deny Kesha the protection of California labor law�”because of choice-of-law provisions in the KMI and Prescription Contracts designed to rob Kesha of her rights under the California Labor Code�”would leave Kesha without labor protections and be fundamentally unjust. The Court should thus apply basic choice-of-law principles and apply California’s Seven Year Rule.”

(via THR).

Here is what Dr. Luke‘s lawyer Christine Lepera added in a statement: “Dr. Luke seeks to add an additional defamation claim against Kesha based upon the discovery of another false and defamatory statement she made about him that was part of her calculated effort to harm his reputation and business. Kesha’s new proposed counterclaim simply repeats the meritless and untrue allegations that were set forth in her earlier pleadings and which Dr. Luke fully disputes.”