Reality show drive-by: Ke$ha's My Crazy Beautiful Life

MTV's delightful new docu-series gives us an admirably honest and incredibly compelling look at the real life of a pop superstar

Pop star Ke$ha's story is an impressive one. The 26-year-old rose from impoverished roots to international superstardom.
(Image credit: Facebook.com/MTVMyCrazyBeautifulLife)

Ke$ha's reality show My Crazy Beautiful Life is worth your time, for many reasons. Chief among them: Unlike other wildly successful and famous performers, Ke$ha is actually able to come across as a three-dimensional human when doing the whole "behind-the-scenes" angle on her celebrity. Compare that to Beyoncé's recent and entirely disappointing documentary Life Is But a Dream, in which Queen B came across as a muted, faraway version of a human hidden behind glowy lighting and all-too-flattering producing. She didn't seem like any sort of normal human life form. And, in some respect, that's reasonable. She's Beyoncé. Her life is nothing like anyone's. But when it comes to being a celebrity who flies on private jets and is still relatable as a quasi-"normal," Ke$ha delivers.

Since breaking out with her debut album Animal, Ke$ha has maintained a steady presence in Top 40 radio over the last few years, whether with her own chart-topping songs or those she writes for other pop titans (take Britney Spears' "Till the World Ends"). And whether it's because of the intentionally rough edges in her own music — singing about late nights and chasing boys — or her own, at-times, scrappy look, Ke$ha has never had the same distant quality that many of her peers have. Her story is an impressive one — she rose from poverty before being discovered by pop producer juggernauts Max Martin and Dr. Luke while still a teenager. Suddenly, she was owning the pop charts through her twenties. Her story is amazing, and relatable. That's why she's an absolutely perfect subject for someone to follow around with a camera.

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Jessica Jardine is from Northern California and has written for The Onion's A.V. Club, FILTER, BUST, Backstage, and Metromix.com. She is also a performer at the Upright Citizens Brigade Theatre in Los Angeles and owns a Calico Persian cat named Beyoncé.