Kesha talks being defined as a ‘party girl’ after ‘Tik Tok’

Kesha’s song “Tik Tok” may be a party anthem, but the singer says she’s not actually the party girl people think she is.

“I love ‘Tik Tok’ and I love that first album [2010’s Animal], like, these are my babies,” she said on Tuesday’s episode of Monica Lewinsky’s Reclaiming podcast. “But I will say, to be put into a particular box was challenging. I felt like, ‘Oh, people aren’t seeing me.’”

While she admits she definitely had her “wild child” phase, she said she never drinks before a performance and has found it hurtful when tabloids have reported that she’s performed under the influence. She recounted a moment when she performed in Dubai with a torn ACL and TMZ reported that she was drunk onstage.

“Contrary to my entire public image, I’m actually quite terrified of substances,” she told Lewinsky. “Like, I had my whiskey moment in my 20s, for sure, but anything else is pretty scary to me.”

Still, she understands why “Tik Tok” was a hit and will be forever grateful to it.

“But I’m also very lucky that [‘Tik Tok’] hit, and I think I tapped into a part of people’s brains that they needed,” she said. “It was a recession, I was giving them unadulterated joy and silliness and goofiness and ‘F*** it, we’re having fun, I don’t care what anybody thinks.’ I do stand by it. That’s an important thing to feel.”