After portions of an old video deposition surfaced in which singer Kesha denies being drugged and raped by music producer Dr. Luke, her attorney fired back by comparing the producer to Bill Cosby, who has been accused by dozens of women of sexual assault.
Mark Geragos, representing Kesha in her efforts to leave Dr. Luke’s record label for reasons including alleged sexual abuse, told TMZ.com that Dr. Luke was “pathetic vermin. This guy is nothing more than his generation’s Bill Cosby. Interestingly, they both impersonate doctors,” a reference to the comedian’s role as Dr. Heathcliff Huxtable on “The Cosby Show.”
The lawyer’s pointed comments came shortly after TMZ posted a one-and-a-half-minute clip of a 2011 video deposition that the site said it had obtained from “a Luke source who heavily edited snippets” of it. While some testimony by Kesha in that unrelated case — in which she flatly denied drug or sexual impropriety by Dr. Luke, 42, born Lukasz Gottwald — became public in October 2014, the video snippets appear to be newly released.
“Did you ever have an intimate relationship with Gottwald?” an attorney asks Kesha, 28, born Kesha Rose Sebert, in the video of that sworn deposition.
“No,” she replies, adding after an edit that, “Dr. Luke never made sexual advances at me.” Her mother, Pebe Sebert, in another segment of the video denies ever being informed of any sexual relationship between Kesha and Dr. Luke, or of any drug use between the two.
Geragos told TMZ that before she testified, Dr. Luke had threatened Kesha and her family “if she didn’t cover up his sexual assault.”
According to People, in the same 2011 deposition Kesha affirmed that she and Dr. Luke had shared a bed at least once, but denied the two had had a sexual relationship.
“Unfortunately, protecting abusers out of fear happens all too often with battered women,” Geragos said in 2014.
Dr. Luke has denied all allegations and on Monday posted a string of tweets saying in part, “I didn’t rape Kesha and I have never had sex with her. . . . Kesha has denied under oath the horrible allegations now being made against me.”
Kesha, thanking fans for their support, wrote on Instagram, “I am beyond words in gratitude. thank you is not enough but it is all I have. a million times over and forever thank you. the support I have received has left my face swollen from tears. I love you all so much. A statement too large for this format is coming. . . . ”
