She was pop’s biggest party girl, but since accusing her producer of abuse she’s been in limbo, wary of speaking out. Now, on the aptly named Gag Order, she’s finding catharsis. ‘I have all the emotions,’ she says
In April 2020, months after the release of her fourth album, High Road, Kesha had a “beautiful and terrifying” spiritual awakening. Having spent the early lockdown months paralysed by anxiety and consumed by the weight of both personal and global trauma, she suddenly felt “overwhelmed by so many things I hadn’t taken the time to stop and think about”. One night, after weeks of looking for answers, she started hearing “what some might call God, what some might call your higher consciousness” via a two-hour-long, completely sober encounter she initially mistook for a psychotic break.
“I woke up in the morning and called all my healthcare workers and explained what happened, and they all said: ‘Oh that’s a spiritual awakening, congratulations.’” She shakes her head. “I was like: ‘What the fuck are you talking about? You’re saying what I’ve been doing therapy for, and meditating for, and searching for, was to have an incredibly surreal, terrifying, nearly psychedelic experience?’ They were all, like: ‘Yep, that’s the goal.’”
