1987-present
Latest News: Kesha Releases New Album Period
Kesha released her sixth studio album Period on July 4. Her first album as an independent artist, the record marks a return to her 2010-era party girl persona, featuring upbeat pop tracks that celebrate her independence and living life to the fullest. The Grammy-nominated singer previewed the project last year with the release of her lead single “Joyride,” which peaked at No. 27 on Billboard's Hot 100 chart.
In an interview with Vogue earlier this month, Kesha revealed that Period is a new start for her as a singer, after finally escaping her alleged abuser Dr. Luke and his label Kemosabe Records in 2023, and launching her own label, Kesha Records.
“This is the first time I’ve owned the words to my voice as an adult,” she said. “I really am looking at this as my first record, and I have the same passion and excitement that I did when I was 20 years old. I feel like I’m getting a second chance.”
The 38-year-old explained that she's more “protective” of herself now and wants her new album to make listeners feel as “triumphant” as she felt making it.“ I hope people put it on and love themselves a little more, protect themselves a little stronger, and have their backs a little harder,” Kesha said.
Who Is Kesha?
Kesha is a Grammy-nominated singer known for her upbeat dance pop songs. The Los Angeles native got her big break from an uncredited and unpaid cameo on rapper Flo Rida's 2009 hit “Right Round” and catapulted to fame soon after with the release her No. 1 single “Tik Tok.” The party anthem developed quite a following, and her debut album, Animal, reached the top of the charts after its release in January 2010. In total, she has released six studio albums, earning two Grammy nominations in the process. In the midst of this, Kesha endured a decade-long legal battle with producer Dr. Luke over claims that he allegedly sexually assaulted and harassed her. After reaching a settlement in 2023, the singer is finally free from his label.
Quick Facts
FULL NAME: Kesha Rose Sebert
BORN: March 1, 1987
BIRTHPLACE: Los Angeles, California
ASTROLOGICAL SIGN: Pisces
Early Life
Kesha Rose Sebert was born on March 1, 1987, in Los Angeles, California. Her mother, Pebe Sebert, is a singer-songwriter who wrote the song “Old Flames Can't Hold a Candle to You,” which was a hit for Joe Sun and Dolly Parton. Her father's identity is unknown.
The first few years of Kesha's life were a struggle for her family. Her mother had difficulty earning enough to support Kesha and her older brother, Lagan. “We were on welfare and food stamps,” the artist explained on her website. “One of my first memories is my mom telling me, ‘If you want something, just take it.’” When she was 4, Kesha moved to Nashville with her family, where her mother had landed a songwriting contract. It was there that her younger brother, Louie, was adopted.
Exposed to music at a young age, Kesha spent a lot of time in recording studios during her early adolescence, tagging along with her mother. Pebe encouraged her interest in singing, allowing Kesha to work on some of her song demos. The aspiring singer also went to a music school, where she learned about songwriting. Deep in the heart of the country music scene, she was inspired by the likes of Johnny Cash and Patsy Cline.
As a teenager, Kesha attended Franklin High School and Brentwood High School in Tennessee, where she excelled at math and played the trumpet and saxophone in the marching band. She was even enrolled in a rigorous pre-college course known as the International Baccalaureate Program. Despite having good grades, Kesha felt like she didn't fit in at school and was bullied for her unique clothes and colorful hairstyles. “I'd make my own clothes and come to school with a different hair color every day and people thought I was a freak,” she recalled. Outside of school, Kesha was in a band with her brother, Lagan, called Dynamite Cop. The first time she sang live was with the band, with performed several shows in Nashville. Kesha also began recording demos, which her mother sent to industry contacts, some of which caught the attention producer Dr. Luke, who had worked with Katy Perry and Kelly Clarkson. He called her home and promised to sign her to his label if she moved to Los Angeles. While Kesha had initially planned to go to Barnard College, she dropped out of high school just before graduation to take up Dr. Luke on his offer.
Music Career
At age 18, Kesha moved to Los Angeles in 2005 and landed a six-album contract with Dr. Luke's companies Prescription Songs and Kasz Money Inc. (KMI). This milestone, however, didn't immediately set off Kesha's path to success. Kesha was waitressing to support herself and even lived in her car for a time. Feeling ignored by Dr. Luke, who was busy with other artists, the singer signed with David Sonenberg's management company, DAS Communications, in 2006, and adopted the stage name, Ke$ha. The dollar was a signifier of her lack of work and financial struggles.
Kesha eventually landed a few gigs as a back-up vocalist, performing on songs by Britney Spears and Paris Hilton and appearing in the music video for Katy Perry's “I Kissed a Girl.” But her big break came from an uncredited and unpaid cameo on rapper Flo Rida's 2009 No. 1 hit “Right Round.” Kesha told later told Entertainment Weekly that she wasn't upset about not receiving any payment for the song. “Honestly, I walked into the studio and there was Flo Rida and Dr. Luke doing the song, and I was like, ‘I’ll just sing on it. I’m just happy you like my voice enough to put me on your song,’” she said.
Soon after her work with Flo Rida, Dr. Luke renegotiated a deal to distribute her music through RCA Records. Kesha released her first single, “Tik Tok,” later that year. The party anthem developed quite a following, soon becoming one of the most downloaded songs in America, and then reaching the top of the Billboard Hot 100 chart in January 2010.
Her debut album, Animal, reached the top of the charts after its release in January 2010. In addition to “Tik Tok,” Kesha scored two more Top 10 hits: “Blah Blah Blah” and “Your Love Is My Drug.” Accompanying this work was the extended play Cannibal, released that November, featuring the No. 1 hit “We R Who We R.” To support both projects, she headlined her first concert tour, the Get Sleazy Tour, in February 2011. Kesha followed up her initial success with 2012's Warrior, which included the single “Die Young.”
In 2013, she teamed up with Pitbull on the hit track “Timber,” which became her third song to lead to the pop charts. That year, Kesha was also the subject of the MTV docuseries My Crazy Beautiful Life, which ran for two short seasons. “I just wanted to document my life, because it’s so insane; I wanted somebody to catch it on film, so I can watch it when I’m old and saggy and be like, ‘My life was so crazy!’” she said at the time.
The singer's momentum took a hit, however, in 2014. After checking into rehab for an eating disorder, she changed her name back to its original spelling and later sue Dr. Luke for sexual assault and harassment. The ensuing legal battle temporarily but her career on hold, but she returned with another album three years later.
Kesha released Rainbow in 2017, marking a significant rebrand for the singer. Shifting away from her party girl persona, the album shared her more vulnerable side, tackling themes of self-worth and empowerment. Rainbow went on to earn Kesha a 2018 Grammy Award nomination for Best Pop Vocal Album. Her emotional single “Praying” was also nominated for Best Pop Solo Performance. “That was such a defiant song,” she said of “Praying” to Grammy.com in June 2023. “There's so much emotion to it, but at the soul of that song, it's standing in me knowing exactly who I am and what I stand for.”
Since then, Kesha has released three more studio albums, ending her contract with Dr. Luke's label with the release of 2023's Gag Order. That September, she launched her own label Kesha Records and signed a distribution deal with ADA. “I am excited to take control of my narrative and rewrite my story in the music business,” Kesha said in a statement. Her most recent work, Period, arrived in July 2025. It is her first record as an independent artist. She embarked on The Tits Out Tour that same month to promote the new project.
Hit Songs
Kesha has released a number of hits since she broke into the music scene in 2009. The pop singer has 23 songs on the Billboard Hot 100 chart, including three No. 1 hits and 10 songs in the top 10. Kesha's breakout single “Tik Tok” spent an impressive nine weeks at No. 1 in 2009, becoming an instant radio sensation. She scored another No. 1 hit with the club anthem “We R Who We R” in 2010, while the singles “Your Love is My Drug,” “Blah Blah Blah” with 3OH!3, and “Take It Off” landed squarely in the top 10. Kesha followed up with the 2011 hit “Blow” before returning with 2012's “Die Young,” which debuted at No. 2 on the Hot 100. In 2013, she collaborated with Pitbull on “Timber,” which topped the chart for three weeks, and released the top 10 single “C'Mon.” Kesha made a comeback in 2017 with the Grammy-nominated “Praying.” Some of her other hits include “Till The World Ends” with Britney Spears and Nicki Minaj, “Good Old Days” with Macklemore, “My First Kiss” with 3OH!3, “Woman” featuring The Dap-Kings Horns, “Raising Hell” featuring Big Freedia, and “Joyride.”
Albums
Legal Battle
In October 2014, Kesha filed a lawsuit against producer Dr. Luke in California accusing him of sexual assault and harassment, including one incident in 2005 in which he allegedly drugged and raped her in his hotel room after attending a birthday party for Nicky Hilton. According to her mother, Pebe, the singer called her from the hotel stating that she had woken up naked and sore but couldn't remember the assault.
The lawsuit also accused him of long-term verbal abuse, claiming that he repeatedly made disparaging comments about her voice and her weight, which eventually led her to check into rehab for an eating disorder in early 2014.
Dr. Luke immediately denied the allegations and filed a defamation countersuit in New York against Kesha and Pebe, as well as her manager, Jack Rovner. In June 2015, Kesha added Sony Music, which owns RCA Records and Dr. Luke's imprint Kemosabe Records, to her original lawsuit, claiming that the company enabled the producer's abuse.
During this difficult time, Kesha received support from other artists, including Adele and Lady Gaga. Taylor Swift even donated $250,000 to the young singer after a February 2016 court decision that refused to grant Kesha an injunction that would have freed her from her contract to Dr. Luke's label at Sony. While the court denied Kesha's request, Sony maintained that the company “made it possible for Kesha to record without any connection, involvement or interaction with Luke whatsoever” but would not terminate the contract between them. That May, Kesha appealed the decision before dropping her abuse lawsuit against Dr. Luke in August 2016.
Lady Gaga later defended the singer in a September 2017 deposition, claiming she first met Kesha at Dr. Luke's home studio wearing only her underwear. During sworn questioning that same year, Kesha revealed: “The abuse I suffered from Luke was a decade long, every day, every moment of every day.”
After a years-long back and forth, a New York judge ruled in February 2020 that Kesha defamed Dr. Luke by accusing him of raping Katy Perry in a 2016 text message to Gaga. She was ordered to pay him more than $373,000 in unpaid royalties. This decision only settled one part of the defamation case against her, however.
Three years later, in June 2023, Kesha won her counterclaim calling for Dr. Luke to be treated as a public figure in his defamation suit, which meant he would be held to a higher standard in proving her allegations of assault were made with malicious intent. Just over a week later, Dr. Luke dropped his lawsuit against her, ending their decade-long legal battle. “Only God knows what happened that night,” Kesha wrote in a statement on social media. “As I have always said, I cannot recount everything that happened. I am looking forward to closing the door on this chapter in my life and beginning a new one.”
Relationships
Kesha has largely kept her dating life private but has been linked to a few romantic connections. Most recently, she was linked to health-tech entrepreneur Michael Gilvary. The two were first seen together in June 2024, but Kesha has denied any relationship rumors, telling TMZ in May 2025 that they are strictly friends with benefits.
Before that, she was spotted with Italian music producer Riccardo Maddaloso, starting in 2022. While Kesha never confirmed the relationship, she later revealed on social media that she was “dumped for the first time” in October 2023. She did not name her ex.
Kesha's last confirmed relationship was with Brad Ashenfelter, who she first started dating in 2014. The two lived together and even shared cats. In 2019, the singer came out as bisexual and revealed she and Brad were non-monogamous. While they didn't announce their split, they were last seen together in 2021. Kesha later clarified in June 2022 that she doesn't use labels to describe her sexual orientation. “I'm not gay. I'm not straight. I don't know what I am. I love people,” she wrote on Instagram.
In April 2025, Kesha told Sirius XM's The Morning Mashup that she was secretly engaged at one point, but did not share who her ex-fiancé was. “I was engaged and I didn't wanna be anymore and I didn't even realize that I was gonna break up with him until I wrote a song about it, and then I listened back to it, and I was like, ‘Oh no, I'm gonna break up with him now,’ but it led me to my truth 'cause I can't lie in the song,” she said.
Net Worth
As of July 2025, Kesha has an estimated net worth of $10 million, according to Celebrity Net Worth.
Quotes
- One of my first memories is my mom telling me, ‘If you want something, just take it.’
- I was engaged and I didn't wanna be anymore and I didn't even realize that I was gonna break up with him until I wrote a song about it, and then I listened back to it, and I was like, ‘Oh no, I'm gonna break up with him now,’ but it led me to my truth 'cause I can't lie in the song.
- I'm not gay. I'm not straight. I don't know what I am. I love people.
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