Kelly Clarkson was willing to lose out on millions to break away from Dr. Luke.
As the record producer was embroiled in a legal battle with Kesha, Clarkson also made headlines last year when she said she was blackmailed into working with the songwriter, whose real name is Lukasz Gottwald.
Revisiting the story more than a year later during an interview with Z100's Mo' Bounce, the Grammy winner explained how everything transpired—and how she allegedly ultimately lost out on "millions" to make a statement.
"There's a lot of times in my career where you don't see my name on a song," she began. "Sometimes I don't write them, but a lot of times I do change the song in a way that probably you should ask for credit, but I don't because the song was already great. I just made it more me and I think a lot of artists steal credit a lot from writers, which I think is super crappy because that's their livelihood."
However, there was one unnamed song in particular that the songstress thought warranted a writing credit. "I did deserve it on that song just because I changed it a bit, but I really just didn't—especially at that time, I was so frustrated that I was forced to work...basically, they were going to sit on my record unless I did what they wanted and I was so frustrated because I literally said, 'Anyone in the world but this one person. I will work with anyone you want to put in my path,'" she recalled, speaking of Dr. Luke.
According to the star, she did not have a good experience with Gottwald and had asked not to work with him. "I just had a negative experience. The guy is super talented. I'm not negating that. That's a fact, obviously."
Ultimately, though she says she changed the song, Clarkson rejected writing credit. "I don't want my name near his. I don't even want—I want to pretend this didn't happen in my life and I want to forget it," the "Love So Soft" singer continued.
According to the songstress, she not only lost out on credit, but also cash. "There's hundreds of thousands of dollars gone because of that...or millions actually. That song was huge," she said. "I was making a point to the people working with me going, 'This is how much I didn't want to do this.' I don't care about the money. I don't care about, 'Oh, you're going to be the most famous person ever if you do this.' That's not what holds weight in my life."
While she clarified that she did not have similar experiences with Dr. Luke as the ones Kesha has accused him of, Clarkson did maintain that she is "not a fan" of him.
As she concluded, "I'm not going to barbecue anytime soon."