In the summer of 2017, it was revealed that Dr. Luke’s legal had subpoenaed Lady Gaga to testify in his case against Kesha. Gaga spoke in court that September, and now unsealed court documents from the deposition reveal that Gaga said to Dr. Luke’s lawyer, “You should be ashamed of yourself.”
The deposition began with Gaga’s lawyer saying that Gaga was experiencing PTSD reactions due to her own history with sexual assault: “I just want everyone to understand that, as she has publicly stated in other contexts, as a sex abuse survivor, and I know this from my own personal experience with family members, there are trigger events, and this deposition has proved to be a trigger event for Ms. Germanotta. And she has experienced in the past few hours some PTSD reactions which is causing some trauma and emotional reactivity. So she is crying now, the record will reflect.”
Gaga then said that she first met Kesha at Dr. Luke’s home studio, while Kesha was in a back room wearing nothing more than underwear, and tried to console her. Dr. Luke’s lawyer asked Gaga if she had evidence of Dr. Luke assaulting Kesha beyond Kesha’s word, to which Gaga responded, “Well, you know — when men assault women, they don’t invite people over to watch. 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.”
Dr. Luke’s lawyer then asked, “But, again, there are people that are falsely accused of rape, aren’t there? You think there has never been a false accusation of rape?” Gaga, seemingly getting frustrated at this point, responded, “You — how about all of the women that are accused of being liars and how she was slut shamed in front of the world, how about that? 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.”
From there, Dr. Luke’s lawyer asked “You weren’t there, correct?” Gaga answered, “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 your eyes at me. You should be ashamed of yourself.”
Read more from the unsealed court documents here.
