07 February 2020
Newsdesk
The 32-year-old singer has said she looks up to the ‘7 Rings’ hitmaker because of how “gracefully” she has handled herself throughout her career, despite the devastating events she has endured whilst in the public eye, including the death of her ex-boyfriend Mac Miller, and the horrific terrorist attack that took place after her Manchester concert in 2017, which killed 22 people.
Kesha said: “You can go through things in life and I see someone like Ariana Grande and I'm so inspired by how she's handled herself so gracefully throughout her life.”
The ‘Praying’ hitmaker also counts Beyonce, Dolly Parton, and Iggy Pop among her inspirations, as she says she takes a leaf out of their books when it comes to dealing with critics and haters.
She added: “I look up to someone like Beyonce or Dolly Parton or Iggy Pop. Like, would they pay attention what haters are talking about? No. They're busy.”
And on top of ignoring the haters, Kesha never looks at where her songs have charted, because she doesn’t need to be “externally validated” by sales if she knows her music is something she can be “incredibly proud of”.
She explained: “I don't look at charts. I'll sometimes hear someone be like, ‘Your song's at whatever’. And to me, I'm just like, ‘I don't want to know’. I really don't because that's external validation. I don't need to be externally validated. I feel validated because I have executively produced and written an entire record and done the artwork and videos for something I am incredibly proud of.”
But the one opinion that does matter to her is her mother’s.
Speaking to Zane Lowe for Apple Music’s Beats 1 Radio, she said: “She's very honest. She is like no bullshit. If I write a song to this day and I'm so stoked, and I've just worked on it for two weeks, and I finally finished it, and I send it over and I'm like, ‘Put it on, tell me what you think. Call me as soon as you're done’. She'll be like, ‘That is dog shit’.”
