Katy Perry continues to face scrutiny for working with producer Dr. Luke, with whom fellow pop star Kesha was locked in a long legal battle over allegations of abuse. “I understand that it started a lot of conversations and he was one of many collaborators that I collaborated with. But the reality is, it comes from me,” Perry said when asked about Dr. Luke producing her new album on the Call Her Daddy podcast. “The truth is, I wrote these songs from my experience of my whole life going through this metamorphosis, and he was one of the people to help facilitate all that. One of the writers, one of the producers. I am speaking from my own experience.”
But the criticism isn't that Luke is some puppet master behind her music; it's about Perry working with an alleged abuser. The collaboration cast a shadow over her upcoming album 143, and particularly over the lead single "Woman's World." Many observers felt it hypocritical of Perry to release a female empowerment anthem produced by a man who kept Kesha trapped in her contract and stuck in court for the better part of a decade.
"When I speak about 'Woman's World,' I speak about feeling so empowered now, as a mother, as a woman, giving birth, creating life, creating another set of organs. A brain! A heart! I created a whole ass heart! And I did it, and I’m still doing it," the singer said on Call Her Daddy. "I’m still a matriarch and feeling really grounded in that, that’s where I’m speaking from. So I created all of this with several different collaborators, people that I’ve collaborated with from the past, from Teenage Dream era. All of that."
Surely, Perry could have pursued her matriarchal moment with a producer who hasn't been accused of sex-based hate crimes. But after some lackluster cultural impact for previous albums (Witness and Smile), she is transparently pursuing the success she used to enjoy during the Teenage Dream era. Indeed, the only reason she stopped working with Luke in the first place was to avoid the public scrutiny of "picking a side," she said in a deposition back in 2018. She seems to have picked right back up with Luke as soon as his legal battle with Kesha was wrapped up in 2023. Unfortunately for her, the public scrutiny persists, and Luke hasn't helped her reclaim any of the old glory; "Woman's World" peaked at number 63 before disappearing off the Hot 100 chart. Follow-up single "Lifetimes" didn't chart at all.
All of this is fairly typical for a project coasting on the fumes of 2010s girlboss feminism. Perry has had months, if not years, to come up with a better answer as to why she'd choose to work with Luke again, and the best she could come up with is some vague word salad with some lip service to female empowerment in an attempt to shield herself from accountability. The press tour for 143 hasn't done Perry or her work any favors.
