Though she may have once sang about it, Kesha didn’t always wake up in the morning feeling like P. Diddy.
The 31-year-old pop star best known for her megawatt disco hits and party-girl aesthetic made it clear she’s transformed ten-fold with the release of her 2017 album Rainbow, and now, she’s opening up to explain just how. In a new interview with Cosmopolitan, Kesha addresses overcoming her eating disorder and, specifically, describes the moment she decided enough was enough. In 2014, she completed a rehabilitation program.
“The final straw was when I was with my mom at a family dinner party and I was so anxious. Driving home, I had to pull over, and I was like, I can’t keep this secret anymore. It was scary, but I finally put my foot down and chose life,” she said.
“That was a huge turning point. I’m not a size. I’m not a number. I am a strong, badass, motherf—ing woman, and quite frankly, I like my junk. Ten years ago, I never thought I’d be able to say that.”
Kesha also addressed being catapulted into the spotlight in 2009, when she became known for singles like “Tik Tok” and, at the time, included a dollar sign in her moniker as Ke$ha. “I thought I had to be very tough and really strong and portray that I didn’t give a f—, and that just was not the case. I was pretending like everything was great all the time.”
RELATED: Kesha Pens Emotional Tribute to Her Supporters After Her Grammys Performance
Notably, the pop star’s latest album focused heavily on overcoming not just her own personal struggles, but a longwinded legal battle with producer Dr. Luke, who she filed a sexual assault case against. In 2016, her case was dismissed, and she’s still tied to Luke through her recording contract. She turned the pain she experienced from the process into music.
“I would write, and pain would turn into art, and the art would turn into healing, and the healing turned into a record. And then I was nominated for a Grammy,” she told Cosmo.
Talk about making a 180.