Ke$ha Shows Her Stripes for V Magazine’s Americana Issue

By Emily Gyben 05/02/12 at 03:00 PM

Photo: Inez van Lamsweerde & Vinoodh Matadin/ courtesy of V

American Girl: Ke$ha covers V magazine.

Step aside, Lady Liberty. For V’s latest issue, the magazine has tapped another all-American woman.

Ke$ha, shot by Inez van Lamsweerde and Vinoodh Matadin, gets a particularly patriotic makeover for V’s Americana issue, complete with a stars-and-stripes face paint job, bright red nails…and nothing else. Inside Carlyne Cerf de Dudzeele-styled spread, she poses in a similarly sexy sequined flag-print DSquared2 dress—though she says sex appeal isn’t really what she’s going for.

“I was never the cool kid. I was never hot in high school. I was never popular,” she tells the magazine. Instead, her message to her fans is that “You don’t have to be perfect and you don’t have to be rich and you can still be successful.”

Now, she’s trying to use that success to make a difference, both with her fans and with her passion project, animals. Ke$ha even has a forthcoming TV show in the works with (wait for it) National Geographic.

“The show looks at animals being abused and how to stop that, or animals that are going extinct and how to help those animals,” she said. “I am so passionate. I like animals more than people.”

Of course, there’s one person whose charms she’s not immune to: yep, Ke$ha’s got Bieber fever.

Ke$ha V magazine

Photo: Inez van Lamsweerde & Vinoodh Matadin/ courtesy of V

Ke$ha in a DSquared2 dress and Western Spirit boot.

“I would sure as hell like to do a collaboration with Bieber,” she said, “and at the same time do a song with the Flaming Lips." (Looks like she's already achieved the latter since press time.) "If someone is a real artist, you can’t confine them to a particular genre.”

The new issue of V hits newsstands May 10.