The New Year began with pop star Ke$ha entering herself in to rehab, and speculation brewing as to why she admitted herself in to the clinic.

Shortly after the TMZ report broke, it was fans of the singer, born Kesha Sebert, that tweeted me Dr. Luke was to blame. Luke signed Ke$ha to a recording deal at 18. He was responsible for her first placement, the hook of Flo Rida’s “Right Round,” and her solo releases. According to a subsequent report by the entertainment news website, people in Ke$ha’s circle claimed that the super-producer constantly asked her to lose weight. In one alleged instance, the songwriter born Lukasz Gottwald called the singer “a f—ing refrigerator” during the 2012 video shoot for “Die Young.”

“Dr. Luke had been telling her how she had to get in shape and lose weight and all this stuff,” Ke$ha’s mom, Pebe Sebert, told People magazine. “She was exercising and dieting and ultimately doing everything she could, but not getting thin fast enough, and that’s when she first became bulimic.”

Through a representative, Dr. Luke refuted the claims.

“These statements and allegations concerning Dr. Luke are completely false,” read the statement given to People. “It is unfortunate that at a time Ke$ha is suffering immensely and trying to heal at a treatment center, her mother is taking this approach with the media. I give Ke$ha my utmost support and well wishes for a quick return to health.”

This does not seem to be the first media report of conflicts between Luke and Ke$ha. Late last year, Rolling Stone mentioned to the “TiK ToK” singer a petition that was circulating the Internet, attempting to separate Ke$ha from her contract with Dr. Luke. Ke$ha acknowledged its existence.

“I feel like my fans are really protective of me,” she responded to the magazine about the petition. “They just want to see me grow as an artist, which I agree with. Hopefully in the future, I’ll be in a position where I can put out a ballad or a more vulnerable song.”

When RS asked if Ke$ha currently had any creative control, she replied, “Not really.”

I asked Cher, a woman in New York who runs Ke$ha’s largest fan support Twitter account, what the singer’s fans are hoping for as far as the petition.

“For Dr. Luke to release her out of this contract, and then she can actually release the music that she wants to release, and be the person she wants to be.”

Meanwhile the collaborative efforts of Luke and Ke$ha seem to still yield big results on the charts. The Dr. Luke-produced “Timber,” which Ke$ha sings on the hook of, just hit number one on the Billboard Hot 100 chart.