14 DAY TRIAL // While the rest of the world was still trying to recover from the terrible New Year’s hangover, Kesha was making a commitment towards a healthier life by checking into a rehabilitation facility dealing with eating disorders. Today, she is finally ready to speak about the experience.
Kesha’s case got a lot of media attention in the weeks after she checked into rehab, because her mother told the press that she had developed the eating disorders because of pressure from her record label and her manager to lose weight.
It’s a well-known fact that there’s always a lot of pressure in showbiz to be as skinny as possible, but hearing that one’s own manager could actually put it on their client was shocking. Just as shocking was the allegation that Kesha’s manager would often call her a “refrigerator” and other insulting names, to let her know that she needed to get thinner.
Speaking with Elle UK, the pop star reveals that her biggest fear was that people would not believe her: after becoming a household name with songs in which she bragged about brushing her teeth in the morning with whiskey, she imagined no one would buy it that she was in rehab for an eating disorder.
“I was battling an eating disorder — but I knew people would assume I was here for other things. I’ve written songs about partying, but my dirty little secret is that I’m actually incredibly responsible. I take my music and career very seriously, and certainly didn’t land in this situation from partying. I imagined people making up stories at a time when what I really needed was support,” she says.
She doesn’t mince words when laying the blame on the industry and its double standards when it comes to the reason she’d gotten in that state. It’s incredibly difficult to be a woman in showbiz because, first of all, you have to look a certain way no matter what; secondly, you’re never really allowed to be yourself.
She speaks of the double standards that apply when it comes to drinking and partying: whenever a man does it, it’s rock ‘n’ roll, but, if a woman does it too, then she’s a trainwreck. We have a feeling that Kesha speaks from a place of experience.
The same applies to her words on the double standards that apply as regards one’s weight. Women are never allowed to be anything less than “perfect.”
“The music industry has set unrealistic expectations for what a body is supposed to look like, and I started becoming overly critical of my own body because of that. I felt like people were always lurking, trying to take pictures of me with the intention of putting them up opine or printing them in magazines and making me look terrible. I became scared to go in public, or even use the internet. I may have been paranoid, but I also saw and heard enough hateful things to fuel that paranoia,” Kesha explains.
Today, she’s somewhat more comfortable with herself in front of the paparazzi, but she knows she’s far from “fixed” just yet. Kesha considers herself a “work in progress” but, while she’s fixing herself, she plans to speak on her issues whenever she can, to help other young women who might find themselves in a similar situation.