The Beautiful Transformation Of Kesha
Throughout the years, Kesha has gone on a journey that she has allowed fans to take with her. Once the ultimate singer of party anthem songs, to now singing with all of her energy about her struggles and overcoming them, Kesha been down many emotional paths in life. Even in her relatively young life, she has transformed over time.
Some changes have been obvious. For example, she changed her name from "Ke$ha" back to Kesha. Other changes have required a need for treatment and self reflection that took time.
As she has gotten older, she has shared these struggles with the world, working to be at peace with herself and others. With already quite the story to tell, let's take a look at the beautiful transformation of Kesha and where she is today.
Her childhood relationship with her mom was all about the music
Music was a passion for Kesha from a very young age. According to Rolling Stone, the star knew she wanted to be a singer since she was 2 years old. And rather than treat it as a young kid's dream, Kesha's mother was fully supportive and would make it sound like a fact that Kesha would one day have a music career and have a record label.
Being a singer as well, Kesha's mom would write music and sing with her daughter about all sorts of topics. Kesha described this to Rolling Stone, saying, "even, like, if we were in a fight about my room not being clean... all of a sudden we would leave the bulls*** at the door, and we would get in a room with a piano and a guitar and write the most sincere beautiful music. You really can't front when you write with your mom."
She saw herself as an outcast growing up
Kesha had a difficult time with the other kids in school. She wasn't "normal" and was called out for this. As the singer told Rolling Stone, "I re fused to conform and they refused to be nice."
The bullying became so bad that she began to eat lunch in the bathroom at school in order to avoid the other kids. Even years later, this feeling never went away. Kesha discussed being at award shows around other big stars, saying, "I just felt like so the outcast, the same person sitting at the lunch table."
The singer found success with songwriting for other musicians
Kesha's success with music began with helping others create their musical visions. In her early 20s, Kesha wrote songs for many different artists; many of these songs reached some major success.
It's just a guess, but there is a good chance that many fans don't know that Kesha is the lyricist behind some of these hits. According to Billboard, this success includes Flo Rida's 2009 song "Touch Me" and Miley Cyrus' "The Time of Our Lives." She also wrote songs for top pop stars Britney Spears and Ariana Grande.
But aside from the world of pop, Kesha showed her range and moved into other styles of music as well. This includes "What Baby Wants," sung by Alice Cooper, which displayed her skills with rock-n-roll songwriting as well.
She was told to make her first songs more dumb and stupid
In the midst of finding success as a songwriter for others, Kesha — or as she labeled herself then, Ke$ha — found her own success when in 2010 her record Animal was released. As the New York Times reported, this album ended up going platinum in the United States.
But even with this success, the 23 year old had some struggles with the album. While she did indeed want to sing about partying and having a good time, there was no balance in her music. She described to the Times the comments she received from her producer Dr. Luke at the timing of Animal. She said, "I remember specifically him saying: 'Make it more dumb. Make it more stupid. Make it more simple, just dumb.' ... I was like, O.K., 'Boys try to touch my junk. Going to get crunk. Everybody getting drunk,' or whatever, and he was like, 'Perfect.'"
Kesha struggled with this lack of balance in the content of her music. She wanted to show the vulnerable side as well, but became known for this party girl persona. She continued, "You can go and have a crazy night out, but you also, as a human being, have vulnerable emotions. You have love."
Social media bullying is to credit for her eating disorder
With big success comes big criticism; this is just what Kesha experienced in her career. Reaching such fame in her early 20s came with a price for the star. She saw horrible comments about herself on social media and had to process these comments over and over again.
She opened up about this difficult time with Teen Vogue and said, "I know from personal experience how comments can mess up somebody's self-confidence and sense of self-worth. I have felt so unlovable after reading cruel words written by strangers who don't know a thing about me."
Kesha continued on to say that these cruel words fueled her eating disorder over time. She shared, "The sick irony was that when I was at some of the lowest points in my life, I kept hearing how much better I looked. I knew I was destroying my body with my eating disorder, but the message I was getting was that I was doing great."
She checked herself into rehab
Amidst her struggle with an eating disorder, Kesha went on tour to promote Warrior in 2013. At the end of the year, the 26 year old was extremely tired and decided it was time to make a change. In January of 2014, she checked herself into a treatment center for her eating disorder.
While there she really wanted to write music, but was not allowed to have equipment with her at the center. As reported by the New York Times, her boyfriend eventually found a toy keyboard, which she was allowed to keep. She was able to write songs about what she was thinking and experiencing in that moment.
After two months, the singer decided it was time to leave the facility. When she left, the first thing she did was take the "$" sign out of her name. She had a new understanding of who she was. She said during the interview, "I was taking back my strength, and I was taking back my voice, and taking back my power, taking back my body. I'm just taking back my [expletive] life."
She felt her hard work was taken away from her
Finding her new strength, Kesha took the time to reflect on her career thus far and how she felt all of her hard work had been taken from her in the past. She said during an interview with NOISEY (via Billboard), "When you work really hard at something, then to have it taken away from you is pretty devastating. I worked my a** off for a lot of years to be able to do it: I sang backup vocals and the first couple songs I was on, I didn't give a f*** because I just had this one vision. Once you earn that and make that happen, then to have it taken away from you is pretty devastating. It is definitely a mind f***."
But now moving beyond those people and her eating disorder, Kesha was ready to make the big changes needed for her ultimate goal. She said, "I think I am just like finding my voice in the world and so the past three years has been me taking my center and myself back and my voice."
#FreeKesha was a big deal
One way that Kesha planned to get back her voice was to file a suit against her producer Dr. Luke in October of 2014.
As The Washington Post stated, she accused him of "drugging and raping her and emotionally abusing her in a manner that ultimately led her to an eating disorder." She wanted to be released from her contract.
The 27-year-old's request was denied in court, due to the nature of her contract. This whole situation led to huge fan support for Kesha on the Internet. #FreeKesha was tweeted out by thousands and thousands of fans. According to the Post, even celebrities got involved, with Lady Gaga, Ariana Grande, and Lorde supporting Kesha.
She now takes social media breaks on the regular
Being on the journey to find yourself, on top of dealing with court cases, makes it more important than ever to take time away. This is just what Kesha is now doing when it comes to social media.
As reported by Teen Vogue, the singer is taking time away from technology in order to give more time to nature and herself. As she told the magazine, "In the past couple of years I've grown up a lot. I've realized that once you take the step to help yourself, you're going to be so happy you did. Taking the time to work on yourself requires bravery. Trying to change your life based on other people's thoughts can drive you crazy. You have to figure out what makes you feel good and what keeps you in a positive head space."