Kesha’s fought an uphill battle in her attempts to be released from her contract with Sony Music, which she says essentially forces her to work with her alleged abuser, Lukasz “Dr. Luke” Gottwald. Kesha has filed lawsuits against Gottwald (who’s countersuing) and Sony, the latter of which she recently claimed offered to let her out of her contract in exchange for an apology. In February, a Manhattan judge denied Kesha the injunction that would have freed her from her contract, and now TMZ reports that same judge has dismissed most of the lawsuit’s claims on appeal.
The judge appears to have taken exception with Kesha’s claims that the contract made her a “slave” to Sony, which she says has effectively ended her career by refusing to let her work with other producers. But because Sony recently offered her a chance to get out of the contract—the aforementioned apology quid pro quo—she was deemed “unreasonable” for not going along. The judge also rejected the argument from Kesha’s lawyers that Gottwald’s alleged repeated sexual abuse of the singer was essentially a hate crime, saying, “every rape is not a gender-motivated hate crime.” At the time of this writing, neither party had issued a statement about the judge’s decision, but if Kesha wants to continue her case, she’ll basically have to start over from scratch.