Earlier this year, Kesha voluntarily admitted herself in a Chicago-area rehab center to seek treatment for an eating disorder, but amidst her two-month stint in rehab, whispers that she was dealing with substance abuse kept hounding her.
Now the Tik Tok and We R Who We R singer is bravely facing the rumor mill, opening up about her personal experience in an in-depth opinion-editorial piece for Elle UK. In her essay, Kesha looks back at the emotions she was dealing with that ultimately led to her eating disorder, her fears while she was getting treatment and how in the end, she finally accepted herself for who she was.
"Sure, I've written about partying, but my dirty little secret is that I'm actually incredibly responsible," she wrote, immediately addressing the rumors surrounding her rehab stint.
Kesha turned to music to cope with bullying at school, and eventually her passion bore fruit as she signed a record contract at 18. But even though she was now given the chance to bury herself into her art, the harsh realities of the entertainment business hit hard.
"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," she continues in her essay. "I felt like people were always lurking, trying to take pictures of me with the intention of putting them up online or printing them in magazines and making me look terrible."
Pretty soon, Kesha's image of herself was starting to go down. And though she wrote empowering songs like We R Who We R, Warrior and Love into The Light, Kesha felt that her words didn't ring true to her anymore.
"I felt like a liar, telling people to love themselves as they are, while I was being hateful to myself and really hurting my body... I convinced myself that being sick, being skinny, was part of my job. It felt safer somehow."
Mentally and physically exhausted, Kesha finally found the courage to admit her situation to her mother. After that, she checked into a rehab center.
Her stint at the center helped Kesha find herself, and to finally come into terms with who she really is. "I began to feel a shift in my mentality and really started to understand my own self-worth. I started to not worry as much about what other people thought of me. I could focus on my music and my happiness and not what I looked like."
