Kesha Talks Her Discovery+ Ghost-Hunting Series Conjuring Kesha and Hopes to Recruit Nicolas Cage for Season 2

Throughout her musical career, Kesha has shown herself to be inventive and dynamic, with her evolution as a performer seeing her tackle all-new and unexpected styles with each release. Not only does she defy definition when it comes to her musical style, but her personal pursuits also shatter expectations. Back in 2020, she launched the podcast Kesha and the Creepies, in which she explored all manner of supernatural subjects, with the pop star immersing herself even further in the unknown with the discovery+ series Conjuring Kesha. Rather than merely discussing paranormal subjects, she and her guests hit the frontlines of infamous locations to uncover the truth behind the mysterious stories. Conjuring Kesha is now streaming on discovery+.

Throughout the season, Kesha dives headfirst into mysteries ranging from demonic activity at Brushy Mountain State Penitentiary with comedian Whitney Cummings to hiking deep into the forests of California’s Mount Shasta in search of Bigfoot with The Bachelorette star, Jojo Fletcher. Kesha and former tour mate Betty Who face their fears at a haunted opera hall in Kesha’s home state of Tennessee; and she converts actor and rapper GaTa into a full-blown believer at one of the most haunted mansions on the West Coast. Kesha and legendary supermodel Karen Elson become the first to film inside an active and haunted lodge affiliated with the notorious secret society, the Odd Fellows. She also takes the queen of bounce rap, Big Freedia, on the ultimate ghost hunt at the infamously haunted Trans-Allegheny Lunatic Asylum in Tennessee.

ComicBook.com caught up with Kesha to talk about her personal experiences, the series’ impact on her personal life, and wanting to bring Nicolas Cage along for a possible Season 2.

ComicBook.com: I have watched my fair share of ghost-hunting investigation series and paranormal series, I’ve seen it all, and I’m not just sucking up to you by saying it is my new favorite ghost-hunting show. I’ve never seen a ghost-hunting show include dialogue such as, “F-ck you demon, f-ck you ghost. I’m going to go home and get a milkshake.”

Kesha: That sums up my experience at “Bloody” Brushy [Mountain State Penitentiary].

I wanted to thank you for bringing this show into the universe, because I feel like I’ve had to convince multiple people, “Kesha has a new discovery+ show and she hunts ghosts in it and it’s really her just hunting ghosts.”

It really is.

I know that you have said in the show and in other interviews that you have felt like you’ve had paranormal experiences since you were a kid, but when you’re a kid, you don’t entirely know, “Is this paranormal or is this something other people experience? Is this weird?” Do you remember the first time you had an experience when you were younger, that you felt, “This is weird. This is a ghost, this is a supernatural thing happening,”?

Oh, absolutely. I remember I was in my house in Nashville when I was maybe five years old and I was sitting in the living room and I saw this light. It felt non-threatening, felt more like an angelic energy, but it just came through the window and intuitively … My grandma had passed away like a year and a half before that and I just knew it was her. I remember thinking like, “Oh, hi grandma.” And it just came through the window and stood in the window and, to my understanding, and I don’t really participate in organized religion, but it was an angel. It was an angel. It was her spirit coming to say hello and check on me and remind me that she was still there.

That’s definitely one of the more reassuring instances of encountering a ghost, a spirit, or an angel than what other people have had. That’s great that you had such a positive experience when you were young. Since you had a connection and had these experiences, do you feel that your actual verdict on whether ghosts or spirits were real before the show versus after was different? Did making the show change your opinion on all of it?

I will say this: making this show genuinely changed my entire life, because I’ve had these paranormal experiences and I think intuitively I knew they were real, but also questioned if other people had these experiences or, if I talk about them, I feel crazy and it felt very fringe. I started with a podcast called Kesha and the Creepies, and then it evolved into Conjuring Kesha. But when I was talking to a parapsychologist, there’s this woman from Edinborough and she was telling me that one in four people have had a paranormal experience and one in two people participate in the supernatural, whether they know it or not. If you pray, you are participating in a ritual that’s paranormal in nature. In this society, it’s really interesting to me that there’s some acceptable and less-fringe things we can talk about that are participating in the supernatural and paranormal, but then there are the other ones that you get eye rolls and make you feel like you’re crazy.

I wanted to close the gap and really just experience all that the universe wanted to send me on this journey of my TV show. It was really fun, and it was really scary, and it was really interesting, and it was really eye-opening. It was very existential for me, too. But, at the end of the day, at the end of the show, I realized there’s so much happening that we can’t see, that we can’t comprehend, and that made me feel so excited because I feel, as a human, there are times where we think we have it all figured out. Working and making money and all of that is the point of this life, and there’s just so much more out there that’s going on energetically and it made me so excited and it reinvigorated my lust for life. 

It’s interesting and important how you talk about just experiencing these things and talking about these things with other people made it feel like it was a fringe thing, or maybe you were a weirdo for believing in ghosts or what have you, and there’s a lot of people who don’t believe. There’s so much out there, whether it be aliens or the Mothman, there’s so much in that realm of the paranormal. Do you feel like if you’re committing to being open to ghosts, you have to accept the existence of these other, maybe more far-fetched things, or do you say, “I do believe in ghosts because I’ve experienced them but maybe the Mothman is not real,”?

I think that I always knew there was energy, right? It’s laws of physics. There is energy, everything is made up of energy, so that’s not crazy. That’s science. And then when you start having experiences, once you personally experience something, it’s a little bit more of a confirmation, because you can talk about it or even watch it on TV, and you can sound like a little crazy or kooky, but then once you feel or experience something, it becomes much more real. 

Once I started experiencing more and more on this TV show and putting myself in these locations that are historically very active, I realized that I don’t know anything, so who am I to say that Mothman does or doesn’t exist? I know there are so many different creatures and interdimensional beings and we may all be talking about the same thing by a different name or there might be so many different kinds of energies and creatures and beings that we just can’t comprehend because we can’t comprehend all the dimensions.

I walked into the episode with Jojo Fletcher at Mount Shasta being like, “I don’t know about this Bigfoot guy. I’m open to it, and it sounds like fun, but I don’t really know if I totally buy the Bigfoot thing.” I left fully convinced that that was so naive and pretentious and shortsighted of me, because who am I to say what does or doesn’t exist in the universe when there’s so many energies and spirits and things and unexplainable situations? I’m not here to say whether or not they exist. I decided specifically during that episode that I just wanted to experience it, whatever the universe wanted to give me, so I’m not one to say that anything does or doesn’t exist. 

All I know is that I absolutely am open to the possibility of it all. I think it’s shortsighted to say anything for sure doesn’t exist. 

With the incredible places that you go in Season 1 and the awesome guests that you have, if there was going to be a Season 2, do you have a dream guest that you’d love to bring along with you or a dream location that you’d love to get access to?

There’s a couple. There’s one place in Alaska called the Red Onion and it’s a haunted bar and saloon, and for some reason, that location has been calling to me. Like, it has been for a year. It just keeps coming up in my mind in conversation, And the Catacombs in Paris.

In terms of a guest to have, God, I do have a wishlist, but I would say my friend Nicolas Cage would definitely be on the top of the list because he could totally conjure up some weird sh-t between the two of our energies. And, also on my dream list, I think Cardi B and I would have the best f-cking time.

Sign me up. If I can Kickstart or crowdfund Season 2, and it’s just you, Cardi B, and Nicolas Cage going to the Catacombs of Paris, you’ve got my money.

I love that. I’m hoping everybody likes it because my goal in this life now, after doing Season 1 of the show, is I want to be the Anthony Bourdain of the supernatural.

I love it. You have my full support.

We could all be manifesting energy.

If you need a cameraman to join you and Nick and Cardi in the Catacombs, I’ll clear some room in my schedule.

Come on, let’s go.

I would like to say, thank you, not only for this series, but I also want to thank you for “Die Young” because that is a go-to karaoke song for me.

You’ll have to send me a video of that.

Of course. I keep hoping that there’s an episode of Conjuring Kesha, where you’re wandering around and you turn to the camera and you say, “Something tells me these spirits…Died Young.”

Oh, my God. Well, Season 2, I got you.

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Conjuring Kesha is now streaming on discovery+.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity. You can contact Patrick Cavanaugh directly on Twitter.