First of all, you should have won the Oscar

You know what, I think so too. I've never [won]. This is my eighth time [being nominated]. I mean, especially after you saw that performance and you look at the audience, everybody's sobbing. The standing ovation, they wouldn't sit down. I've never witnessed a performance like that. So I think it won a bigger prize. When's the last time a song changed something? It happened in the '60s, happened in the '70s. It doesn't happen in the 2010s, or whatever they call this era. When's the last time a pop song is starting a conversation and actually having an impact on the culture? This song is. So when you think about that, it's like, it would have been great to get an Oscar, but this is way more powerful. I know the song's becoming a hit. The fact that it didn't win, it galvanized everybody to go, "Wait..." The next day, people were clambering for it, because of the controversy. Would it have been nice to win? Yeah. Gaga was sitting next to me and she goes, "Now practice your loser face in case we…" I go, "No, we're going to win. And I know my loser face. I've done it seven times." I think everybody was shocked. Not just people that knew me.

I was there and it was shocking

I heard in the pressroom there was like a gasp. When ["Writing's on the Wall"] won, there was hardly any applause. I think people were just like, What? I kept saying, "What just happened? What just happened?" I was like, "What?" I've never been so sure. Especially after what we just heard and what we just saw. The most powerful performance almost ever.

Tell me about the decision that you made to write the song for free

It was a small movie. They didn't have the budget. I'm like, "Don't worry about it. I'm good. It's too important. I don't mind. I don't mind doing it. It's a good thing."

This came from a personal place with Gaga, it came from a personal place with you. Tell me about channeling that experience into the music

It's weird because I never really told my mom and dad. I was molested by a friend of mine's dad, and I remember we did the New York Times talk, all of a sudden I blurted it out in front of a group of strangers. So the song is even powerful to me. Before this song, I wouldn't have even talked about that. 

Have you seen, in your experience in the music industry, overt sexism or sexual harassment or sexual abuse? Is it a problem in the industry?

Yeah. You see this thing with Kesha. Look, when I was coming up, I remember going to see someone's engineer, and he masturbated in front of me. I wasn't a female recording artist. I was just a songwriter. So I didn't get a lot of that, to be honest. But that was enough. You think about these young girls coming up. It's so weird, the whole oversexualization. I was looking at a Rolling Stone, they did a thing on the '90s. They had a thing on Britney Spears. I'm looking at that, and it's really gross. She's like this schoolgirl, she was, like, 15. I don't know. At the time, I didn't think it was gross. But now I'm like, it's so sexualized. And they're, like, old men, older guys coming up with this marketing plan. She's 15. Do you know what I mean? Like, I didn't [used to] think of stuff like that. But now you look and you go, "Ugh." Those guys in a boardroom coming up with that. It's not women. Most women would be horrified.

Gaga's been supportive of Kesha. Where do you stand on Kesha?

I mean, I hope she can get out of her contract. No one knows what happened, but the right thing would be to let her go. If that was me, I'd go, "You know what, just go on your way. Make your music. Live your life."

Have you had a lot of people coming up to you since the song went big?

Oh my god. I get so many notes and letters and texts. "You didn't know this, but I was raped. You didn't know this, but I was molested." Now, if that happens to me, I can't even imagine what Gaga is getting. I meet people that I don't even know. I'm inundated with people, like on Facebook, like really baring their souls. I'm so humbled and so proud of this song. To have written a song that has this kind of impact, it's amazing. This is what music is supposed to do.