A Timeline of Katy Perry Working With Dr. Luke

Katy Perry’s working relationship with the controversial producer Dr. Luke is her most fruitful artistic partnership. The massively profitable business veteran produced the pop star’s first No. 1 single, “I Kissed a Woman,” and a variety of Billboard-topping hits off her second album, Teenage Dream, together with the title monitor, “California Gurls,” “E.T.,” and “Final Friday Night time (T.G.I.F.).” It’s solely pure that Perry would enlist Dr. Luke for her sixth album and tried comeback to the industrial discipline she as soon as dominated. Who higher, in her eyes at the very least, to be the lodestar pointing her to days when all you may hear while you turned on the radio was a track off Teenage Dream and the identify you stored seeing on the Scorching 100 in 2010 was Katy Perry?

All that achievement doesn’t have in mind the Dr. Luke of 2024, who has been sued for sexual assault and battery. (Even when individuals like Kim Petras, Nicki Minaj, Doja Cat, Metropolis Women, Lil Durk, and extra nonetheless work with him.) In 2014, fellow pop star Kesha filed an explosive lawsuit towards Dr. Luke, accusing him of drugging and sexually abusing her. Kesha additionally claims she suffered emotional and psychological abuse at his arms. Beneath, Perry’s current historical past with Dr. Luke forward of the discharge of her upcoming album, 143, on September 20.

August 28, 2018: Following Kesha’s lawsuit towards Dr. Luke, the producer takes the “Tik Tok” singer to courtroom for defamation claims. In courtroom testimony, Perry denies the allegations that Dr. Luke raped her, calling them “outrageous and unfaithful.” The claims stem from a 2016 textual content Kesha allegedly despatched to Woman Gaga the place she mentioned he raped Perry. Representatives for Kesha deny that she was spreading false rumors.

February 7, 2020: A New York Supreme Courtroom decide guidelines that Kesha defamed Dr. Luke when she claimed Dr. Luke raped Perry. “Perry unequivocally testified that Gottwald didn’t [rape her]. In response, Kesha has not raised a triable difficulty,” Decide Jennifer G. Schecter says. “There is no such thing as a proof in any way that Gottwald raped Katy Perry, or that Katy Perry, whose sworn testimony is unrefuted, should not be believed.”

June 19, 2024: Perry proclaims that she’s going to collaborate with Dr. Luke and Max Martin for her upcoming album. “Katy knew precisely the album she wished to make and put collectively the group to make it occur,” a Capitol Data supply confirms to Rolling Stone. “And that features earlier collaborators together with Luke, Stargate, Max Martin, and Sarah Hudson, and a few new heavy hitters similar to Vaughn Oliver, Rocco Valdes, and Theron Thomas.” The singer teases a 15-second snippet of the track on TikTok and Instagram. Titled “Girl’s World,” the monitor goals to be a female-empowerment anthem à la 2010s white feminism.

Kesha all however rolls her eyes on the information. She merely tweets, “lol.”

July 11, 2024: Perry releases “Girl’s World.” Vulture author Justin Curto argues the track “takes a stage of cognitive dissonance to sing about energy and sisterhood over a beat co-produced by an alleged rapist.”

Abigail Breslin, recognized for her roles in Little Miss Sunshine and Miranda’s Sufferer, thinks Perry’s choice to work with Dr. Luke is greater than problematic. “I’m simply saying… working with recognized abusers in any business simply contributes to the narrative that males can do abhorrent shit and get away with it,” she tweets. “On one other be aware, I really like @KeshaRose and she or he gave among the best exhibits ive ever been to final 12 months <3 stream Kesha!”