It seems like, lately, Kesha has been struggling with a lot more than we even know about (and we know about quite a bit). The Grammy-winning artist revealed that she recently had near-death experience due to a rare complication from a standard medical procedure.
“I almost died in January,” Kesha told Self in an interview published on June 20. A year previously, the songwriter explained to the magazine, she had undergone a standard egg-freezing procedure, because she wanted more time to consider when and if she wanted to have children without worrying about a ticking biological clock. According to Self, Kesha’s procedure resulted in a rare but serious complication that doctors partially attribute to her weakened immune system (Kesha was diagnosed with an immunodeficiency disease in 2022).
“I finally feel recovered, but it took a couple months. It was horrifying,” Kesha said, explaining that she doesn’t want her story to influence anyone else’s choices for their own reproductive health. “I just was taking my reproductive health into my own hands. And I stand by everyone doing that and [honoring] your body,” she explained. “Everyone probably has some semblance of feeling like you share what you’re going through, and, at the same time, it’s almost inviting people to have an opinion about it. I don’t have that perfectly mapped out.”
At the moment, Kesha is busy promoting her latest studio album, Gag Order, whose title is a not-so-veiled reference to her ongoing legal battle with her former record producer Dr. Luke and current label Kemosabe Records. Kesha has accused Dr. Luke of sexual assault and battery and sexual harassment (which he has denied) and in 2014, she sued in an effort to get out of her contract, per Reuters, which was denied. Dr. Luke later countersued Kesha for defamation, which she is fighting in the courts right now. On June 13, according to Reuters, a judge notched Kesha a major victory by holding that Dr. Luke is a public figure, which will make it more difficult for the producer to prove that Kesha defamed him by accusing him of sexual assault.
“I maybe should be more nervous, or taking a microscope to every sentence that I’m saying from every angle, but I’ve done that for so long, and I just…. I’m done,” Kesha told Self.
