Kesha v. Dr. Luke: Appeals court upholds defamation ruling against singer

An appellate court ruled in favor of music producer Dr. Luke on Thursday on an important legal question in his defamation suit against Kesha.

But Thursday's ruling upholds a lower court's 2020 finding that Kesha made a defamatory statement about him — to Lady Gaga — and that she can't defend it by saying that Dr. Luke is a public figure. That matters because public figures have to meet a higher legal standard than everyday people do in order to prove they've been defamed. Requests for comment were sent to lawyers for Dr. Luke, for Kesha and for more than a dozen media outlets and organizations that filed friend-of-the-court papers in the case. The media group argued that the lower court's ruling would help powerful people squash free speech and reporting on sexual abuse.