Of the artists who have publicly supported Kesha in her sad, messy and very complicated legal battle with music producer Dr. Luke, Lady Gaga has probably been the most vocal. And while the release of Kesha’s new album is brilliantly exciting and Lady Gaga's #FreeKesha tweets have dramatically reduced in frequency, the latest updates to proceedings are a stark reminder that sadly, there’s still a whole lot going on behind the scenes.
Lady Gaga’s connection to the case has vaguely been on everyone’s radar for a while following the outpouring of social media support that she quickly became the face of. But Lady Gaga has since been subpoenaed by Dr. Luke for deposition about some texts that Kesha allegedly sent her back in 2013, and is reportedly set to testify in the case.
One of Dr. Luke’s reps told TMZ that the lawyers ‘served a subpoena on Lady Gaga because she has relevant information regarding, among other things, false statements about Dr. Luke made to her by Kesha’. It’s also been claimed that the texts involve details of how Dr. Luke allegedly drugged and raped her.
TMZ also reported that the texts had apparently already been ordered earlier this year but Luke’s lawyers claimed that ‘the copy they got was so heavily redacted it was incomprehensible’. Last month Lady Gaga countered Luke's lawyers' claims though and insisted that she had provided all of the relevant information. One of her representatives told *Variety *in a statement: ‘Dr. Luke’s team is attempting to manipulate the truth and draw press attention to their case by exaggerating Lady Gaga’s role and falsely accsing her of dodging reasonable requests’.
The legal battle began back in 2014 and it's clear that the long and exceedingly complicated proceedings aren't yet close to being closed. According to Page Six, it's been agreed that Lady Gaga will appear for a deposition sometime in September and the statement by Luke's lawyersalludes to a potential for the involvement of celebrity 'third parties'. In short, the situation continues to be as upsetting and frustrating as it was three years ago. Kesha's triumphant new album deserves to be celebrated for so many reasons, her bravery and ability to move on from what she's been through being right up there as the most prominent. But unfortunately, we can't afford to forget that a beautiful record doesn't, and hasn't, magicked away the difficulties it was born out of. Sadly, it's all not as straightforward as we will have hoped it to be.
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This article originally appeared on The Debrief.