Katy Perry Denies Dr. Luke Raped Her in Unsealed Deposition

By Gene Maddaus

LOS ANGELES (Variety.com) – In a deposition excerpt unsealed on Monday, Katy Perry shot down a rumor that she was raped by Dr. Luke. The document was released as part of the producer’s defamation suit against Kesha, who has accused him of raping her.

’s attorneys have also accused Kesha of circulating an allegation that he raped Perry. In her deposition, Perry adamantly denied the rumor.

“Did Dr. Luke ever rape you?” an attorney asked.

“No,” Perry replied.

“Did Dr. Luke ever sexually assault you?”

“Absolutely not.”

“Did he ever give you a roofie?”

“No.”

“Did you have a sexual relationship with Dr. Luke at all?”

“No.”

“A romantic relationship?”

“No.”

According to the suit, Kesha sent a text message to Lady Gaga in February 2016 in which she claimed that Dr. Luke had raped Perry. A separate deposition of was also partially released on Monday, in which she discussed hearing the rumor from John Janick, the CEO and chairman of Interscope Geffen A&M Records. Lady Gaga said she was with Kesha at the time, and Janick was showing support for Kesha.

“He said something like, ‘I heard he raped Katy, too,’” Lady Gaga testified.

In her deposition, Perry said she has heard of Janick, but does not know him and never made any sort of sexual allegation to him about Dr. Luke.

“I couldn’t pick him out of a crowd,” Perry testified.

Janick issued his own statement on Monday, following the release of the transcript excerpts.

“As his deposition makes clear, John Janick was simply a bystander to a conversation; not a participant in it. Although John is not a party to this litigation, he voluntarily provided factual responses to questions from both sides’ attorneys,” the statement read.

Almost all of the depositions of the two stars were kept under seal. Dr. Luke’s attorneys are accusing Kesha of cooking up a false rape allegation as part of a concerted campaign to ruin his career and extricate her from her contract.

One of the documents released on Monday was a Sunshine Sachs press plan, dated Oct. 10, 2014, in which the publicity firm discusses preparations for the filing of Kesha’s lawsuit against Dr. Luke.

“Our goal is to help extricate Client K from her current professional relationship with Person L by inciting a deluge of negative media attention and public pressure on the basis of the horrific personal abuses presented in the lawsuit,” the document states.

The plan discusses disclosing the lawsuit first to TMZ, and pushing talking points off the record “to ensure our story is being told as completely and as favorably for Client K as possible.”

In emails, Kesha’s representatives, Vector Management’s Jack Rovner and Ken Levitan, discuss a plan to “ruin” Dr. Luke, and “take down his business” and dub the press campaign a “jihad.”

Dr. Luke’s attorneys issued a statement on Monday arguing that the publicity campaign largely succeeded.

“The false narrative Kesha created about being raped became widely accepted, damaging Dr. Luke’s reputation irreparably,” his attorneys stated. “There is nothing worse than abuse and sexual assault. Dr. Luke supports any woman or man who seeks to address sexual abuse in the legal system. That is not what happened here. It is also horrendous to falsely accuse someone of a heinous act.”

Kesha’s attorneys issued their own statement, arguing that Dr. Luke had taken his litigation strategy “straight out of the blame-the-victim playbook.” They said that Kesha never claimed any independent knowledge of whether Dr. Luke in fact raped , and argued that it is frivolous for him to sue her for defamation based on a comment in a private text message.

They also highlighted quotations from depositions of Kesha and her mother, in support of her claim that Dr. Luke did in fact rape Kesha in 2005.

“Contrary to Dr. Luke’s Legal Team’s assertion that today’s evidentiary record reveals something Kesha doesn’t want the public to see, Kesha has consistently requested that the evidence in the case be unsealed, while Dr. Luke has fought vigorously to keep the evidence from seeing the light of day,” her attorneys argued. “Kesha looks forward to defeating Dr. Luke’s meritless $40+ million damage claims at summary judgment or trial.”

Sunshine Sachs Press Plan by gmaddaus on Scribd