Lady Gaga’s September 2017 deposition in the legal battle between Kesha and Lukas “Dr. Luke” Gottwald has been unsealed, with the testimony revealing that Gaga fiercely defended Kesha while questioned by Gottwald’s lawyers.
Gaga was subpoenaed and deposed in the ongoing legal fight due to a text message conversation between her and Kesha where Kesha confided to her that Gottwald had raped her.
Kesha also told Gaga that a record label executive informed her that Gottwald raped Katy Perry, which both Perry and Gottwald later denied. The text message exchange was subpoenaed as part of Gottwald’s defamation lawsuit against Kesha.
In the unsealed deposition, obtained by the Blast, Gaga’s lawyer prefaced that the singer herself was “a sex abuse survivor… there are trigger events, and this deposition has proved to be a trigger event for Ms. Germanotta.”
Gaga then recounted how the first time she met Kesha, the singer was only wearing underwear in the back room of Gottwald’s studio. Over the next few years, Kesha begin confiding in Gaga.
“What we discussed was, what I recall was her immense sadness and depression and fear,” Gaga said. “She was visibly very different than when I had seen her before, and – but I can’t say specifically what we spoke about. I just recall it was emotional and I wanted to be there for her.”
Eventually Kesha told Gaga that Gottwald had sexually assaulted her. When Gottwald’s lawyer asked Gaga whether she had witnessed or had evidence of Gottwald’s abuse of Kesha, Gaga fired back, “Well, you know – when men assault women, they don’t invite people over to watch.”
Gaga added, “And when this happens in this industry, it is kept extremely secret, and it is compounded by contracts and manipulative power scenarios that actually include this very situation that we are all in right now.”
Under continued questioning, Gaga started to become enraged at Gottwald’s lawyers for questioning the legitimacy of Kesha’s claims.
“I have factual knowledge of her depression. I have factual knowledge of her need for support and love. I have factual knowledge of the spiral that I watched that girl go down. I have factual knowledge of trauma. I am informed and intelligent about this issue. That girl has experienced serious trauma and she is in the middle of the right now. And you are all a party to it,” Gaga chided the lawyers.
“Why on earth would this girl tell the entire world this happened? Why on earth? Do you know what it’s like for survivors? Do you know what it’s like to tell people? Don’t you roll you eyes at me. You should be ashamed of yourself.”
The text message conversation between Gaga and Kesha resulted in yet another legal motion Tuesday as Kesha’s legal team filed documents arguing that the singer is not responsible for the defamatory nature of the text conversation, since it was Gottwald’s legal team that subpoenaed for the release of the private exchange between Gaga and Kesha.
Kesha’s legal team also argued that, while both Gottwald and Perry denied the rumor that Gottwald raped Perry, those denials aren’t proof that the rape didn’t happen, Billboard reports.
“Indeed, for obvious reasons, an alleged rapist’s denial is hardly proof that the rape did not occur,” the filing said. “And victims often deny sexual abuse, particularly when the perpetrator and victim share a personal or professional relationship; that is precisely why domestic-violence prosecutions often proceed in the face of a denial of abuse.”