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Kesha Nails Lady Gaga Cover At Humane Society Gala, Bringing Herself And Audience To Tears [Video]

By Maat van Uitert
Published on: 08:22 PST, May 8, 2016

Kesha’s recent performance of Lady Gaga’s Oscar-nominated song “Til It Happens to You” moved both the singer and the audience to tears as Kesha poured her heart into revealing the true meaning of the song.

Throughout the past year, Kesha, who has not released a new album in years, has been fighting a personal battle to end her contract with Sony and music producer Dr. Luke, whose real name is Lukasz Gottwald.

The performance of “Til It Happens To You,” which took place at the Humane Society Gala in Los Angeles, California, was a poignant message from Kesha, who asserts that she was drugged and raped by Dr. Luke 10 years ago and again in 2008 during a plane ride.

At the time, Kesha kept quiet, according to court documents, because “Dr. Luke threatened to destroy her career and family if she told anyone.” Following a stint in rehab, Kesha said she found the courage to come forward with her accusations. The producer has adamantly denied he assaulted Kesha and has never been charged with the crime.

During her performance, Kesha was accompanied by Diane Warren on the piano. Before commencing, Kesha told the audience that she “want[ed] to dedicate this song to every man, woman, child, animal, that has ever been abused,” before belting out the song’s haunting lyrics.

“You tell me hold your head up, hold your head up and be strong…Tell me, how the hell could you talk?…’Cause until you walk where I walk, it’s just all talk.”

The song, written by Lady Gaga and Diane Warren, was created for a documentary about campus rape called The Hunting Game. Ultimately, it was nominated for an Oscar.

After Kesha sang, Lady Gaga gave the performance her stamp of approval, tweeting “[k]illed it @KeshaRose,” adding that the “Poker Face” singer “could feel your pain. Girl these boys won’t be in charge forever. The wisdom of women is rising. Let’s get louder.”

Clearly, the fight to end her contract with Sony and Dr. Luke has taken its toll on Kesha, and at the end of the performance, the 29-year-old recording artist broke down in tears and hugged Diane.

Last February, a New York State Supreme Court judge ruled that Kesha, whose real name is Kesha Rose Sebert, did not have the right to terminate her contract with Sony and Dr. Luke. The same judge dismissed Kesha’s counter lawsuit for intentional infliction of emotional distress, claiming that the statute of limitations had passed for both the alleged assaults in 2005 and 2008.

Although Kesha claims that she suffered continuous abuse at the hands of Dr. Luke, the judge responded to a tearful Kesha, writing in court documents that the singer’s “claims of insults about her value as an artist, her looks and her weight are insufficient to constitute extreme, outrageous conduct intolerable in civilized society.”

During her court battle, many celebrities backed Kesha, with Taylor Swift, in particular, donating $250,000 for Kesha to put toward her legal bills. In addition, both Adele and Lorde have publicly vocalized their support of Kesha.

Lady Gaga has come forward as one of Kesha’s biggest supporters, and before her performance of “Til It Happens To You” at the Academy Awards last February, Lady Gaga tweeted to Kesha that she would be “thinking of” her.

“I feel like she’s being very publicly shamed for something that happens in the music industry all the time, to women and men,” Lady Gaga told Carson Daly during an interview last March.

Gaga, who claims she was raped at age 19, also said that she wants to support Kesha largely “because I can’t watch another woman that went through what I’ve been through suffer.”

What do you think? Will Kesha get to end her contract with Sony eventually? Leave a comment below!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u1TF7LxexKU

[Photo by Angela Weiss/Getty Images]

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