Katy Perry denied rumors that Dr. Luke had raped her in a deposition excerpt unsealed on Monday. Variety reports that the deposition is part of a defamation suit that the producer has filed against Kesha, who has accused Dr. Luke of raping her. Attorneys for Dr. Luke are accusing Kesha of spreading the rumor that Katy Perry was also raped by the producer, which Perry categorically denied when questioned by attorneys during the deposition.
“Did Dr. Luke ever rape you?” an unnamed attorney asked Perry in the excerpt.
“No,” Katy Perry replied.
“Did Dr. Luke ever sexually assault you?”
“Absolutely not.”
“Did he ever give you a roofie?”
“No.”
“Did you have a sexual relationship with Dr. Luke at all?”
“No.”
“A romantic relationship?”
“No.”
The rumors that Katy Perry was sexually assaulted by Dr. Luke began in February 2016. According to the suit, Kesha sent Lady Gaga a text naming Perry as another victim of the producer. Lady Gaga was also deposed about her knowledge of the rumor. She discussed hearing it from John Janick, the CEO and chairman of Interscope Geffen A&M Records. Gaga said that Kesha was present during the conversation with Janick.
Despite her legal team’s efforts to keep her testimony sealed, Katy Perry’s deposition in Dr. Luke and Kesha’s longstanding legal battle was released Monday, showing Perry unequivocally denying that Luke raped her. https://t.co/jwYj4xgNKE
— USA TODAY (@USATODAY) August 28, 2018
“He said something like, ‘I heard he raped Katy, too,’” Lady Gaga testified in the deposition.
Katy Perry, however, says she has heard of Janick but has never met him.
“I couldn’t pick him out of a crowd.”
Janick’s attorneys released a statement after the deposition excerpts were unsealed on Monday, saying that he was simply a bystander to a conversation and did not actively participate in it. The statement also said that although John Janick was not party to the litigation, he tried to provide factual answers to the attorney’s questions.
Dr. Luke’s attorneys have accused Kesha of making false rape claims to get out of her contract with the music producer. They are calling it an attempt to ruin his career and a concerted campaign against their client. One of the documents released on Monday was a press plan from Sunshine Sachs which discusses preparations ahead of Kesha filing her lawsuit against Dr. Luke.
“Our goal is to help extricate Client K from her current professional relationship with Person L by inciting a deluge of negative media attention and public pressure on the basis of the horrific personal abuses presented in the lawsuit,” the plan says.
Kesha’s attorneys have issued a statement saying that Dr. Luke’s lawsuit is straight from the blame-the-victim playbook. They deny their client had any independent knowledge of Katy Perry being raped by Dr. Luke. The statement also argues that suing someone over a comment in a private message is frivolous.