About Katy Perry
Katheryn Elizabeth Hudson, known professionally as Katy Perry, is an American singer, songwriter and television personality. She is known for her influence on modern pop music and her camp style, being dubbed the "Queen of Camp" by Vogue and Rolling Stone. At 16, Perry released a gospel record titled Katy Hudson (2001) under Red Hill Records, which was commercially unsuccessful. She moved to Los Angeles at 17 to venture into secular music, and later adopted the stage name "Katy Perry" from her mother's maiden name. She recorded an album while signed to Columbia Records, but was dropped before signing to Capitol Records.
Perry rose to fame with One of the Boys (2008), a pop rock record containing her debut single "I Kissed a Girl" and follow-up single "Hot n Cold", which reached number one and three on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 respectively. The disco-influenced pop album Teenage Dream (2010) spawned five U.S. number one singles—"California Gurls", "Teenage Dream", "Firework", "E.T.", and "Last Friday Night (T.G.I.F.)"—currently the only album by a female singer to do so. A reissue of the album titled Teenage Dream: The Complete Confection (2012) subsequently produced the U.S. number one single "Part of Me". Her empowerment-themed album Prism (2013) had two U.S. number one singles, "Roar" and "Dark Horse". Both their respective music videos made Perry the first artist to have multiple videos reach one billion views on Vevo and YouTube. The electropop album Witness (2017) featured themes of feminism and a political subtext, while Smile (2020) was influenced by motherhood and her mental health journey. Afterwards, she embarked on her Las Vegas concert residency titled Play (2021–2023), receiving critical acclaim and commercial success.
Perry is one of the best-selling music artists of all time, having sold over 143 million records worldwide. She has the most U.S. diamond certified singles for any female artist. All of her studio albums released under Capitol have individually surpassed one billion streams on Spotify. She has nine U.S. number one singles, three U.S. number one albums and has received various accolades, including a Billboard Spotlight Award (currently the only female artist to have one), four Guinness World Records, five Billboard Music Awards, five American Music Awards, a Brit Award, and a Juno Award. Perry has been included in the annual Forbes lists of highest-earning women in music from 2011 to 2019. Outside of music, she released an autobiographical documentary titled Katy Perry: Part of Me in 2012, voiced Smurfette in The Smurfs film series, and launched her own shoe line Katy Perry Collections in 2017. Perry began serving as a judge on American Idol during its sixteenth season in 2018.
On social media, Perry surpassed Justin Bieber as the most followed person on Twitter in November 2013. She won the 2015 Guinness World Record for most Twitter followers, and became the first person to gain 100 million followers on the site in June 2017. Keith Caulfield of Billboard stated that Perry is "the rare celebrity who seems to have enormous popularity but genuine ground-level interaction with her adoring KatyCats." In June 2017, Time magazine listed Perry among its "25 Most Influential People on the Internet" of the year, writing that her live-stream for Witness was "blazing a trail" for being "the closest any major entertainer has come to giving fans the kind of 'real' intimacy that social media purports to provide".
Perry has been described as a sex symbol; GQ labeled her a "full-on male fantasy", while Elle wrote her body looked "as though sketched by a teenage boy". Vice called her a "'serious' popstar/woman/sex symbol". She was placed at number one on the Maxim Hot 100 in 2010 as the "most beautiful woman in the world", with editor Joe Levy describing her as a "triple – no quadruple – kind of hot". Men's Health readers voted her the "sexiest woman of 2013". In November 2010, Perry told Harper's Bazaar that she was proud of and satisfied with her figure.
Perry's fashion often incorporates humor, bright colors, and food-related themes such as her characteristic spinning peppermint swirl dress. Vogue described her as "never exactly one to shy away from the outrageous or the extreme in any realm", and called her the "Queen of Camp", while Glamour named her the "queen of quirk". In February 2009, Perry told Seventeen that her fashion style was "a bit of a concoction of different things" and stated she enjoyed humor in her clothing. She has also described herself as having "multipersonality disorder" for fashion. Perry lists Gwen Stefani, Shirley Manson, Chloe Sevigny, Daphne Guinness, Natalie Portman, and the fictional character Lolita as her style icons. In 2022, Elle dubbed her as "the kitsch-loving pop star renowned for her uniquely experimental style", while Vogue described her style as "synonymous with outrageous, eye-catching ensembles that lean towards the theatrical".
During the 2017 launch of her shoe collection, Katy Perry Collections, she said about shoes: "When I first got to L.A., I cultivated my style on a budget, always shopping at thrift stores or vintage stores. … Once, I found these flats that looked like Dalmatian dogs. They had ears that moved and a tongue that stuck out. They were such a conversation piece. That's what is so great about fashion. … It's a form of communication. You don't have to start a smoking habit to start talking to someone. You can just wear cool shoes. It's an icebreaker."
Perry was married to English actor, comedian, musician, and podcaster Russell Brand from 2010 to 2012. As of February 2024, she is engaged to English actor Orlando Bloom, of whom she's been dating since 2016.
Perry is of English, Irish, German, and Portuguese descent. As of February 2024, she is the second most-followed woman and the sixth most-followed person on Twitter, with over 107 million followers.
As of April 2024, she has amassed 207.0 million followers on Instagram, 7.2 million followers on TikTok & 44.9 million subscribers on her YouTube platform.
