Yup, Her Halloween Costume Was Super Offensive

In major WTF news, on Thursday of last week, British pop singer Lily Allen dressed up as music producer Dr. Luke for Halloween. The 29-year-old mother of two was spotted entering Kate Hudson's annual Halloween bash wearing bright blue scrubs, a stethoscope, and a name tag that read, "Dr. Luke — Gynecology Dept." Effing yikes. Given that Lukasz "Dr. Luke" Gottwald is currently being sued by Kesha for allegedly subjecting her to a decade of mental, physical, emotional, AND sexual abuse, Allen's costume seems more than a little inappropriate. To put it bluntly: What the hell was she thinking?

Allen is no stranger to controversy (see: the cultural appropriation in her "Hard Out Here" music video), so I suppose that her dressing up as Dr. Luke for Halloween shouldn't really surprise me. However, this feels especially clueless — even by her standards. That being said, I still want to give Allen the benefit of the doubt. It's entirely possible that her intentions were good. It's entirely possible that she was just trying to "stick it" to Dr. Luke with her costume, and in turn, show her support for Kesha. However, if that was really what she was trying to accomplish, there were certainly more direct and less potentially offensive ways to go about it.

Allen could have put out a statement, for instance. She also could have, I don't know, contacted Kesha privately (what a concept!) But she didn't. To me, that makes this whole costume thing look like a publicity stunt, a cry for attention. "Look over here, everyone!" Allen seems to be saying. "I'm such a badass because I'm not afraid to make tasteless jokes about sexual assault! Look how edgy I'm being!" No, you're not being edgy. You're making light of a very serious situation and that's just not cool.

If there's a silver lining here, it's that Allen's costume may have been able to spark some meaningful conversations about Kesha's lawsuit against Dr. Luke within the music industry. After all, she did attend a party that had a lot of A-Listers on the guest list. She could have raised some awareness. Additionally, it's not like her costume cast Dr. Luke in a positive light or anything. Still, in my opinion, there were far better ways to get people talking.