Kesha dumped boyfriend to feel 'free'
Kesha dumped her boyfriend after being released from her recording contract because she wanted to feel more "free".
Kesha dumped her boyfriend after being freed from her recording contract.
The Rainbow singer left record label Kemosabe in December 2023, six months after her long-running legal battle with producer Dr Luke came to an end, and as soon as she heard the news, she began removing other things from her life that didn't make her "feel free".
She told Rolling Stone's Music Now podcast: "When I got this insane call that I was gonna be free in three months’ time, it was like being in a movie. It was such an insane phone call to get. And from that moment onward, I’ve just been on 11. So it’s crazy, but I’m good and I feel very alive...
"Literally the second I got that call, I looked around and was like, 'Anything that does not make me feel free has to go.'
"So I called the guy I was dating and very lovingly was like, this is not it.
"I went to the woods, I started meditating heavily. It’s been this obsession for me to try to see what makes me feel free and what doesn’t, including the stuff in my house. I don’t wanna be beholden to a genre of music.
"Being blonde to be a pop star — it was frying my hair. That doesn’t make me feel free. I’m gonna have f****** roots, goddammit.
"Anything that I feel beholden to, even subconsciously that I’m maybe not even aware of, I’ve started really trying to analyse what feels good and what doesn’t."
The 38-year-old singer has also vowed to stop trying to "people-please" when it comes to her music and to only work on songs which she enjoys, rather than worrying about mass appeal.
Referring to her 2023 LP Gag Order, she said: "I made an album with Rick Rubin that was so spiritual and meaningful. At the time, it was so different for me, and I felt like, 'Are people gonna like this?'
"I don’t think certain people were happy I made that record. It was not a pop-banger record. So there was this people-pleasing of like, 'Oh, is that all right if I’m doing this?'
"I can’t wait to just explore. The people-pleasing piece has been something I’ve really been looking at with my freedom — how that has affected my life and my music. I really want to get completely limitless in terms of the sonics, like, what is possible sonically.…
"Since I was young, it was like, 'This is how long a song should be.… Make the bridge iconic and make sure people like it.' And now, I’m kind of like, 'Make sure I like it.'
"What if I make sure people hate it? I don’t know. I just wanna see what is possible.… I might just continue making pop songs ’cause I love pop songs, but I just wanna feel so f****** free."
