Producer Dr. Luke’s record label will now allow singer Kesha to perform at the Billboard Music Awards on Sunday.
Maintaining that her performing there “was always approved,” a Kemosabe Records statement Thursday said permission was “suspended when Kemosabe learned Kesha was to use the performance as a platform to discuss the litigation. Now that Kemosabe has obtained assurances, that it is relying upon, from Kesha, her representatives and [awards-show producer] Dick Clark Productions that neither Kesha nor her supporters will use the performance as such a platform, the approval has been restored.”
A day earlier, Kesha, 29, posted on Instagram that she had planned to sing Bob Dylan’s “It Ain’t Me, Babe.” “I’m very sad and sorry to say I won’t be allowed to do this,” she wrote. “I just wanted to make very clear that this performance was about me honoring one of my favorite songwriters of all time and has never had anything at all to do with Dr. Luke. I was never going to use a picture of him, speak of him or allude to my legal situation in any way. I simply wanted to sing a song I love to honor an artist I have always looked up to.”
In March, Kesha appealed a New York Supreme Court decision that mandated she record the remaining six albums on her contract with Kemosabe, which Dr. Luke, born Lukasz Gottwald, heads. The “Tik Tok” singer had sued him in 2014, alleging he made sexual advances toward her and forced her to ingest drugs and alcohol from the time she signed on with him at 18.
