Photo: Via @KeshaRose.Kesha shocked fans earlier this year when she entered rehab to seek treatment for an eating disorder. She emerged two months later, tweeting that she was "feeling healthy and working on tons of new music." The singer also added that she "couldn't have done this without [her fans]."
Now, Kesha is opening up even more about her personal battle in a revealing essay she penned for ELLE UK. She hopes that sharing her "uncomfortable story" is worth it if even just one person seeks help after reading it.
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The essay is also a scathing critique of the absurd body-image standards and sexism that's been allowed to flourish in the music industry. "I felt like part of my job was to be as skinny as possible, and to make that happen, I had been abusing my body. I just wasn’t giving it the energy it needed to keep me healthy and strong," Kesha wrote. In addition to suffering from a warped sense of self, the singer felt pressured to slip into more and more of a "crazy" persona as her star rose.
"I was wild, crazy, and free. I talked about sex, about drinking. When men do that, it's rock and roll, but when I did it, people assumed I was a train wreck," the singer explained. When she decided to go to rehab, she knew people would assume it was for partying, drinking, or drugs. That's about as far from the truth as possible. "My dirty little secret is that I'm actually incredibly responsible. I...certainly didn't land in this situation from partying."
During her two-month stay in rehab, Kesha had no access to phones or cameras. She worked through her vulnerability to participate in group therapy sessions, until finally she "began to feel a shift in [her] mentality and really started to understand [her] own self-worth." By speaking to nonjudgmental strangers, Kesha learned to shut out the noise she knew would return the second she landed at the airport, where the paparazzi would be waiting.
"Even I need to be reminded that we are who we are," she concluded. "And when I say that, I fucking mean it, now more than ever." Preach, Kesha. (Idolator)