Kesha sat down for an interview on this week’s episode of The Best Show With Tom Scharpling. She discussed her new album, Gag Order, working with Rick Rubin, her recent TV series Conjuring Kesha, working with Kurt Vile on a co-write, the time she got slapped by a shark, and the infamous moment when Jerry Seinfeld refused to give her a hug. Listen to the full episode at the bottom of the page. Find video clips below, too.
Kesha said before she started working with Rubin, she heard he was “this Buddha-like motherfucker” and ended up feeling like a “baby duckling” in his presence. “He’d order a blue smoothie, and I’d be like, ‘I want the blue smoothie too,’” she said. “And then he walks around barefoot, so I start walking around barefoot. The beginning of the album there are pictures of me with my Gucci on, and then, by the end, I look like a little wannabe Rick Rubin clone, wearing an oversized T-shirt, barefoot, walking around with my blue smoothie.”
Tom Scharpling also asked Kesha about working with Kurt Vile, who is credited as a co-writer on Gag Order’s “The Drama.” The outro of the song is pulled from a track she and Vile wrote about her wanting to be a house cat. She said it occurred to her to reach out to Vile to set up a writing session after hearing him on The Best Show. “Through listening to your show, I started hearing Kurt drop in and be a weirdo,” she said. “I always loved Kurt and listened to his music, but listening to your show and listening to him talk on your show is the reason I reached out to him to write.”
When asked about a person around whom she’d be starstruck, Kesha revealed a recent instance: Through working with Rubin, Kesha met Neil Young at the Shangri-La studio in Malibu. “It didn’t go well because I couldn’t look at him, so I was kind of talking to the wall,” she said. “I didn’t do a good job.”
Kesha also spoke about the infamous moment when Jerry Seinfeld, during an on-camera chat with the press at a David Lynch Foundation event in 2017, repeatedly refused to hug her. Both Kesha and Seinfeld practice transcendental meditation. She said she traveled out of her way during a tour to attend the event because she heard Seinfeld would be there.
“I used to take my computer and carry around the world, internationally, a little DVD so whenever it would get bumpy on the plane, I would pop in Seinfeld and feel like everything’s OK in the world and watch my buddy Jerry,” she said. “So, then, I get to the fucking charity event and I got really excited because he brings me peace and love and all things good in the universe. And then he didn’t hug me in front of cameras. It was hilarious, but also so sad. It was the saddest moment of my life.”
“But my redemption after Jerry was I ran into Bob Dylan and he gave me a really big hug,” the pop musician said, noting that Nashville Skyline is one of her favorite albums ever.
