Well he is hardly going to admit she is a label puppet

The reason she has creative freedom is because her creative choices correspond with what the label wants.
She WANTS to make cheesy music that has mass appeal in order to sell more, rather than being artistic. So her label let her do it. Duh.
It would be different if she wanted to make indie music / branch out and expand her creativity into less popular genres. They wouldn't give her full freedom if that was the case.