Katy Perry

Katheryn Elizabeth Hudson (born October 25, 1984), known professionally as Katy Perry, is an American singer, songwriter, and television personality. Known for her influence on modern pop music and her campy style, she has been referred to as the "Queen of Camp" by Vogue. Pursuing a career in gospel music at 16, Perry released her debut album, Katy Hudson, under Red Hill Records in 2001, 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.

She 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.)"—becoming 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. The electropop album Witness (2017) featured themes of feminism and a political subtext, while Smile (2020) was influenced by her recent motherhood and mental health journey. Afterwards, she embarked on her Las Vegas concert residency titled Play (2021–present), 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. All of her studio albums released under Capitol have individually surpassed one billion streams on Spotify, totaling six billion streams.[1] 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. Her acclaimed Super Bowl halftime show performance in 2015 is the most watched in history. 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. She is also the most-followed woman and the third most-followed person on Twitter, with over 100 million followers.

While not strictly identifying as religious, she has stated, "I pray all the time – for self-control, for humility."[16] Wanting to be like her sister Angela, Perry began singing by practicing with her sister's cassette tapes. She performed the tracks in front of her parents, who let her take vocal lessons like Angela was doing at the time. She began training at age nine[17] and was incorporated into her parents' ministry,[4] singing in church from ages nine to 17.[18] At 13, Perry was given her first guitar for her birthday,[4][19] and publicly performed songs she wrote.[10] She tried to "be a bit like the typical Californian girl" while growing up, and started rollerskating, skateboarding, and surfing as a teenager. Her brother David described her as a "tomboy" during her adolescence, which Perry talks about on her song "One of the Boys".[20] She took dancing lessons and learned how to swing, Lindy Hop, and jitterbug.[21] Perry completed her General Educational Development (GED) requirements early at age 15,[22] during her first year of high school,[23] and left Dos Pueblos High School to pursue a music career.

After Columbia dropped Perry, Angelica Cob-Baehler, then a publicity executive at the label, brought Perry's demos to Virgin Records chairman Jason Flom. Flom was convinced that she could be a breakthrough star and she was signed to Capitol Records in April 2007. The label arranged for her to work with Dr. Luke to add an "undeniable smash" to her existing material.[49][50] Perry and Dr. Luke co-wrote the songs "I Kissed a Girl" and "Hot n Cold" for her second album One of the Boys. A campaign was started with the November 2007 release of the video to "Ur So Gay", a song aimed at introducing her to the music market.[51] A digital EP of the same name was also released that month.[52] Madonna helped publicize the song by praising it on the JohnJay & Rich radio show in April 2008,[53] stating "Ur So Gay" was her "favorite song" at the time.[54] In March 2008, Perry made a cameo appearance as a club singer in the Wildfire episode "Life's Too Short"[55] and appeared as herself during a photo shoot that June on The Young and the Restless for the show's magazine Restless Style.[56]