Kesha is a self-proclaimed Seinfeld stan, but when she saw Jerry Seinfeld at a red carpet event in June, it didn’t occur to her that, like his character, the comedian might not be down to hug somebody he had never met before. So, she went for it, and the rest is painfully awkward history. After the fact, Seinfeld’s reasoning for the snub was totally on-brand: “I don’t hug a total stranger. I have to meet someone, say hello. I gotta start somewhere… hug isn’t first moment of a human, two humans. I never did that.”
Since then, though, things have been looking up for Kesha: Dr. Luke dropped his defamation lawsuit against her mother, she released a vulnerable video for her new song “Praying,” and now, word has gotten out that she finally got her hug. No, she didn’t get any Seinfeld redemption, but she met Bob Dylan at a music festival and the two warmly wrapped their arms around each other.
https://soundcloud.com/siriusxmmusic/kesha-talking-about-the-seinfeld-hug-attempt
In an interview with SiriusXM, Kesha said “her idol in life” agreed to meet her shortly after the Seinfeld incident and said that he “opened his beautiful arms and gave me the most wonderful, healing Bob Dylan hug that I’ve ever dreamt of, and I just could care less about anything else.” If that wasn’t enough, he even hugged her again at the end of their conversation.
Dylan did a double hug, Jerry! A double hug!
She also spoke about what was going through her head during the Seinfeld incident, and said she should have seen it coming:
“I instantly was like, ‘Oh, f*ck me, I somehow ended up in my very own mini episode of Seinfeld for like five seconds. I should [have known better], I’ve seen every episode a thousand times. […] That’s why I was trying to attack him, yes! That’s why I wanted a hug so hard. Anyways, he’s just not a huggy guy, it’s fine. […] I’ve seen the hugging episode. That was my fault.”
There’s no video footage of Kesha’s successful Dylan hug, so revisit her Seinfeld non-embrace below.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ho56cfTnoFk