Katy Perry has finally addressed her decision to work with Dr Luke on her new album and it’s gone down like a lead balloon.
Despite topping charts in her early career, Perry, 39, has failed to impress fans with her latest single Woman’s World.
The song attracted huge controversy as she is singing about female empowerment in a song produced by Dr Luke.
Dr Luke, 50, was previously accused by Kesha of raping and drugging her as well as physical and verbal abuse, which he has denied.
The Praying hitmaker, who had worked with Lukasz Gottwald multiple times over the years, also alleged that he had sexually assaulted Perry; which she denied.
While the claims were settled out of court after a defamation case was raised, many fans felt it was in poor taste for Perry to work with Dr Luke again.
‘I understand that it started a lot of conversations and he was one of many collaborators that I collaborated with,’ Perry said on the Call Her Daddy podcast.
She continued to host Alex Cooper: ‘But the reality is, it comes from me. The truth is, I wrote these songs from my experience of my whole life going through this metamorphosis, and he was one of the people to help facilitate all that.’
Addressing the song lyrics, which some have branded cheesy or anti-feminist, Perry said she was ‘speaking from my own experience.’
She added: ‘When I speak about “Woman’s World,” I speak about feeling so empowered now, as a mother, as a woman … I created all of this with several different collaborators, people that I’ve collaborated with from the past, from Teenage Dream era. All of that.’
Her reasoning, just like the track itself, hasn’t gone down well with fans, given Kesha’s very public battle with Dr Luke.
Fans accused her of ‘dodging’ difficult questions or using her motherhood to ‘distract’ and ease the backlash.
‘She’s so full of s**t lol. “Why did you work with him?” “I MADE A BABY WITH MY VAGINA!”,’ slammed Chris E Teigan on X.
Lina Morgan Roth said: ‘That she slithers away with a non answer here is grotesque. Shame on her and this “journalist” for letting her get away with it.’
‘Katy Perry totally dodged the question though,’ wrote MikeyTBH. ‘Her answer didn’t explain why she chose to work with Dr. Luke again, she simply just said “yeah I am working with him again and many others” lol.’
‘She said more when she stayed silent,’ came one scathing tweet from Julia as Kartik branded it a ‘whole lot of nothing.’
‘Said a whole lot of nothing,’ added VicDaGreat94. ‘Here’s the truth. She’s been struggling to find that next Roar or Teenage Dream. She needs a hit and wanted to go back to Dr. Luke for the sauce.’
Andy said: ‘So disgusting to hear her say she’s a matriarch and feels grounded in that as a response as to why she worked with [him].’
Some fans did defend Perry, stating she was relaying ‘her experience’ and added that Kesha and Dr Luke had settled the case.
‘She gave a good answer,’ said berkbilas while Kylo said: ‘At the end of the day, the case got settled a while ago so idk why people are dragging it on to try and hate on her..’
In 2016, a New York judge dismissed Kesha’s assault case, with Judge Shirley Kornreich writing: ‘While Kesha’s [claim] alleges that she was sexually, physically and verbally abused by Gottwald for a decade, she describes only two specific instances of physical/sexual abuse.
‘And the most recent event described was alleged to have happened in 2008 and so falls outside of the statute of limitations.’
Dr Luke then moved to claim Kesha had defamed him, although a panel of New York State Supreme Court Appellate Division judges ruled he was not a public figure.
In 2023, both parties agreed to settle the matter and released statements, with Kesha stating she did not recall the entire night but wished to move on with her life.