Katy Perry is having a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad time promoting her new album. From a lead single that feels about 15 years too late, to a music video that might have wreaked havoc on the environment, nothing seems to be going right ahead of 143’s release later this month.

Now, Perry’s made another PR misstep, this time in an interview on the podcast Call Her Daddy. Even before releasing lead single “Woman’s World,” Perry was catching flak for working with Dr. Luke, the infamous producer who was accused of assault by Kesha. Folks across the internet wondered why someone as famous as Perry couldn’t simply find another producer to work on her album, rather than collaborating with an alleged abuser. Perry’s kept tight-lipped on her decision to work with Luke — until now.

On the podcast, host Alex Cooper asked Perry about the situation directly. “I know a lot of people have expressed disappointment and were really upset that you decided to involve Dr. Luke on this album,” she asked. “Why did you choose to work with him?”

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This was Perry’s big chance to acknowledge why Luke is a controversial figure (to put it lightly). Instead, she doubled down on her choice to work with him, without really answering the question at all.

“Look, I understand that it started a lot of conversations. And he was one of many collaborators that I collaborated with, but the reality is it comes from me,” Perry said. “The truth is I wrote these songs from my experience of my whole life going through this metamorphosis. And he was one of the people to help facilitate all that. One of the writers, one of the producers.” 

“I am speaking from my own experience,” she continued. “Like, when I speak about ‘Woman’s World,’ I speak about feeling so empowered now, as a mother, as a woman. Giving birth, creating life, creating another set of organs, a brain, a heart — I created a whole-*ss heart! And I did it, and I’m still doing it, and I’m still a matriarch. And feeling really grounded in that — that’s where I’m speaking from. I created all of this with several different collaborators, people I’ve collaborated with from the past, from Teenage Dream era, all of that.”

Perry’s rambling response did nothing to appease people across the internet, who are justifiably upset to see Luke still working with one of the biggest names in pop music. “That’s a whole lot of words to basically say she was chasing a hit,” reads one of many replies criticizing Perry’s comment.

At this point, 143 seems destined to flop, and every new move from Perry only makes it worse. We’ll see how bad the fallout truly is when the album releases on September 20.

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