The song came out in 2010.
Kesha’s mum Pebe Sebert has spoken out about the controversial line in the hit single Cannibal as the song recently has gotten a lot of backlash due to it.
Since the Netflix series Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story aired, there have been a number of songs over the years that reference the serial killer and they are getting serious backlash over it.
Like her daughter, Kesha’s mom Pebe is also a singer-songwriter, and took to TikTok to share why they decided to include the line about Dahmer in the 2010 song.
In the TikTok caption, she wrote: “Some context on the lyric that’s bothering people 12 years later. All opinions are valid. Not meant to shut anyone down, just more info.”
“The whole Jeffrey Dahmer lyric in Cannibal is a big controversy right now,” Pebe said in the video. “I thought I’d just say a few things about it because that was my line that I wrote in Cannibal.”
She explained: “At the time, Kesha and the other writer were too young to even know who Jeffrey Dahmer was. Literally, the way it happened is I have this rhyming program called Master Writer for Songwriters. We were looking for a rhyme for ‘goner,’ at the very end of the widest rhymes was Jeffrey Dahmer. I was like, ‘Oh, my God, that’s a perfect lyric.’
@pebesebert Some context on the lyric that’s bothering people 12 years later. All opinions are valid. Not meant to shut anyone down, just more info #jeffreydahmer #kesha #cannibal #dahmer ♬ Cannibal – Ke$ha
“Not to be insensitive to anybody whose families were involved in this and lost loved ones. At the time, it was a song that we were writing about Kesha. It was a tongue-in-cheek funny song. It was not actually about cannibalism. It was just a title.
“I’m sorry for anyone who’s lost a family member in this tragedy. We certainly never meant to hurt anybody or make anybody feel bad. There’s a [series] out right now that’s kind of bringing attention back. The song’s been out for more than 10 years, probably almost 12 years. This is not something that we’ve recently written.”
At the time, she said that “Jeffrey Dahmer was just part of the culture back then” and that every one “talked about him for many years.”
Adding that knowing his crimes were extreme, she did note that they were “worse than anyone had ever done that anybody knew about.”
In the single, Dahmer’s name was used in the verse: “Use your finger to stir my tea // And for dessert I’ll suck your teeth // Be too sweet and you’ll be a goner // Yeah, I’ll pull a Jeffrey Dahmer.”
The backlash comes after Evan Peters stars as the killer in Ryan Murphy’s new crime Netflix drama which takes a deep dive into his crimes, with many saying it is “re-traumatising” for the victim’s families.
