In April, Reneé Rapp brought out Kesha during her Coachella 2024 set, and they performed Kesha’s monstrous 2009 hit “Tik Tok” with a noticeable change. Instead of singing, “Wake up in the morning feelin’ like P. Diddy,” they sang, “Wake up in the mornin’ like ‘F*ck P. Diddy.’”
At the time, Diddy was already facing several troubling abuse allegations, beginning with Cassie Ventura’s lawsuit last November. On September 16, Diddy was taken into federal custody and indicted on charges of “racketeering conspiracy; sex trafficking by force, fraud or coercion; and transportation to engage in prostitution,” as per Variety.
On Thursday morning, October 3, Elle published a wide-ranging profile on Kesha. Within it, journalist Suzy Exposito relayed how and why Kesha and Rapp changed the “Tik Tok” lyric at Coachella, as excerpted below:
“Prior to their performance, the women discussed a remix of Kesha’s original opening line — ‘Wake up in the morning feeling like P. Diddy’ — to condemn the disgraced music mogul, Sean Combs, who was indicted on sex trafficking charges in September, and faces multiple lawsuits alleging sexual assault and harassment. ‘Wake up in the morning like F*CK P. Diddy,’ Kesha and Rapp shouted in unison, to the approval of thousands of screaming fans.
The decision to make the switch ‘was pretty quick and easy for the both of us,’ Rapp tells me over the phone. ‘Diddy is such a f*cking asshole. So many men who were working prominently at that time were such disgraceful shames of human beings. Kesha certainly doesn’t put up with any sh*t, and I most definitely don’t put up with any sh*t.’”
Welp! There you have it.
A timeline of Diddy’s ongoing sex trafficking case can be found here.