A deposition excerpt unsealed on Monday sees Katy Perry unequivocally denying that she was ever raped or sexually assaulted by producer Dr. Luke aka Lukasz Gottwald, as Variety reports.
The document forms part of Gottwald’s defamation case against Kesha, who in 2014 alleged that the producer had abused, drugged and sexually assaulted her over the course of ten years.
The deposition reads:
Attorney: “Did Dr. Luke ever rape you?”
Perry: “No.”
A: “Did Dr. Luke ever sexually assault you?”
P: “Absolutely not.”
A: “Did he ever give you a roofie?”
P: “No.”
A: “Did you have a sexual relationship with Dr. Luke at all?”
P: “No.”
A: “A romantic relationship?”
P: “No.”
Kesha had proposed a countersuit to the defamation case, arguing for the termination of her professional contracts with Gottwald as they would be professionally untenable – a claim most recently denied by the Supreme Court back in May.
In his suit – for which he wants USD $50 mill – Gottwald says that Kesha circulated the false rape allegation in order to wreck his career, and allow her to end her contract with him.
Gottwald points to text message sent from Kesha to Lady Gaga in 2016 where she writes not only that he had sexually assaulted her, but that he had also raped Perry.
In a separate deposition of Lady Gaga, also partially released Monday, she said that she had heard the rumour from the CEO and chairman of Interscope Geffen A&M Records, John Janick, when she was with Kesha, She said she didn’t “recall exactly the way he said it“, but “I just recall that it was brought up — by him.”
A 2014 press plan from publicity firm Sunshine Sachs was also released, detailing how the agency would “help extricate Client K [Kesha] from her current professional relationship with Person L [Gottwald] by inciting a deluge of negative media attention and public pressure on the basis of the horrific personal abuses presented in the lawsuit“.
In a statement Gottwald’s attorneys argued that the PR firm’s campaign was a “false narrative“:
The false narrative Kesha created about being raped became widely accepted, damaging Dr. Luke’s reputation irreparably. There is nothing worse than abuse and sexual assault. Dr. Luke supports any woman or man who seeks to address sexual abuse in the legal system. That is not what happened here. It is also horrendous to falsely accuse someone of a heinous act.
A statement from Kesha’s attorneys argued that Gottwald’s lawsuit against her is “straight out of the blame-the-victim playbook”, that Kesha never claimed to know if Dr. Luke had raped Perry, and that a defamation suit based on a private text is frivolous.
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