She is one of the best-selling music artists in history, having sold over 151 million records worldwide. After recording the stripped-down live album MTV Unplugged (2009), Perry returned to the studio. She made a greater splash several months later with the single “I Kissed a Girl,” an assertive ode to sexual curiosity backed by a hard-edged electro-pop beat. Perry’s initial efforts at mainstream stardom were fruitless, with two separate record labels signing and subsequently dropping her before any material was released. By then, however, Hudson had found new musical models in such rock artists as Freddie Mercury and Alanis Morissette, whom she had discovered through friends.
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. Perry and Dr. Luke co-wrote the songs “I Kissed a Girl” and “Hot n Cold” for her second album One of the Boys. In addition, after Devine suggested that songwriting team the Matrix become a “real group”, she recorded an album, The Matrix, with them. In Nashville, she started recording demos and learned how to write songs and play guitar. She rose to fame with One of the Boys (2008), a pop rock album 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. At 16, Perry released a gospel album titled Katy Hudson (2001) under Red Hill Records, which was unsuccessful.
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- In 2010, she recalled that “Thinking of You” was one of the first songs she wrote after moving to Los Angeles.
- Perry primarily listened to gospel music, as secular music was generally discouraged in the family’s home.
- “Hot n Cold” was released the following September and became the album’s second successful single, reaching number three on the Billboard Hot 100, while topping charts in Germany, Canada, the Netherlands, and Austria.
- However, not everyone sided with the pop star.
- Katy Perry tied Michael Jackson’s record of five number one songs from a single album when her song “Last Friday Night (T.G.I.F.)” reached the top of the Billboard Hot 100 chart in 2011.
- While critics often disparaged Perry’s songs as vapid, the music industry was generally kinder, rewarding her with several Grammy Award nominations, including album of the year for Teenage Dream.
When “Teenage Dream” and “E.T.” received Diamond certifications in 2024, Teenage Dream became the first and only album in history with four Diamond-certified songs on its tracklist. She also became the first artist to have three songs receive Diamond certifications from the RIAA in 2017 with “Dark Horse”, “Firework”, and “Roar”. With more than 151 million records sold worldwide, Perry is one of the best-selling music artists of all time. During May 2024, it reached 4 billion views, making it the most viewed music video by a female artist on YouTube at that time. The following month, her music video for “Roar” reached 1 billion views on Vevo, making her the first artist to have multiple videos with 1 billion views. In June 2015, her music video for “Dark Horse” became the first video by a female artist to reach 1 billion views on Vevo.
In April, Perry was included on a remix of Daddy Yankee’s song “Con Calma”, featuring Snow. In February 2017, the singer launched a shoe line titled Katy Perry Collections. Its third single, “Swish Swish”, featured Nicki Minaj and followed the next month. The song reached number one in Australia and number eleven in the United States. Perry chose to release it as a standalone track rather than save it for her album “because now more than ever, there is a need for our world to unite”.
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Later that month, Perry embarked on her fifth concert tour, the Lifetimes Tour, which is scheduled to end in December. The record was panned by critics, and Perry was widely criticized for her decision to work with Dr. Luke on it after singer Kesha’s allegations of sexual assault against him. In February 2024, Perry announced her exit from American Idol following the conclusion of the twenty-second season, saying she wanted to “go out and feel that pulse to my own beat” and release new music after being “in the studio for a while”. Four months later, she sold her music rights to Litmus Music for an estimated $225 million.
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On July 22, 2009, Perry recorded a live album titled MTV Unplugged, which featured acoustic performances of five tracks from One of the Boys as well as one new song, “Brick by Brick”, and a cover of Fountains of Wayne’s “Hackensack”. The Matrix’s self-titled album, which Perry had recorded with the band in 2004, was released on iTunes on January 27, 2009, as a result of her solo success. She recorded background vocals on P.O.D.’s single “Goodbye for Now”, was featured at the end of its music video in 2006, and performed it with them on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno.
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Perry would also perform at the Hotel Café, performing new music while she was between record labels. In 2010, she recalled that “Thinking of You” was one of the first songs she wrote after moving to Los Angeles. At 13, Perry was given her first guitar for her birthday, and publicly performed songs she wrote. Six of Perry’s songs have received Diamond certifications from the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA). Her following albums—Witness (2017), Smile (2020) and 143 (2024)—were released to varying critical and commercial success. Its reissue, subtitled The Complete Confection (2012), produced the U.S. number-one single “Part of Me”.
- Outside of recording music, Perry appeared as herself in the film Zoolander 2, which was released in February 2016.
- In the final ruling, the judge awarded Perry roughly $1.84 million, which was made up of a calculated rental-value loss minus offsets for retained capital and interest, plus an approved repair-cost amount, per People.
- Katy Perry (born October 25, 1984, Santa Barbara, California, U.S.) is an American pop singer who gained fame for a string of anthemic and often sexually suggestive hit songs, as well as for a playfully cartoonish sense of style.
- As of September 2025, she was the second-most followed woman on the site, with over 104 million Twitter followers, and the sixth most followed musician across social media with a combined total of over 377 million followers across Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter.
Four months later, she released a new single, “Electric”, a collaboration with Pokémon as part of its 25th anniversary. Additionally she collaborated with various artists to create two remixes of Smile album tracks. In June 2019, Perry appeared in the music video of Taylor Swift’s “You Need to Calm Down”. She also recorded the song “Immortal Flame” for the game Final Fantasy Brave Exvius, and had a playable character modeled after her. The following month, she released another fragrance with Coty, entitled Mad Potion. Outside of her music career, Perry reprised her role as Smurfette in The Smurfs 2, which was released in theaters on July 31, 2013.
Perry started writing songs for her new album in June 2016, and recorded an anthem for NBC Sports’ coverage of the 2016 Summer Olympics titled “Rise”, which was released the following month. Katy Perry tied Michael Jackson’s record of five number one songs from a single album when her song “Last Friday Night (T.G.I.F.)” reached the top of the Billboard Hot 100 chart in 2011. Along with Thomas Rhett, Perry recorded a country pop duet titled “Where We Started” for his album of the same name that was released on April 1, 2022. While critics often disparaged Perry’s songs as vapid, the music industry was generally kinder, rewarding her with several Grammy Award nominations, including album of the year for Teenage Dream.
On September 7, she set a new record by becoming the first artist to spend 69 consecutive weeks in the top ten of the Hot 100. It topped the Billboard Hot 100 for five non-consecutive weeks, making Teenage Dream the ninth album in history to produce four number one singles on the chart. “E.T.” featuring Kanye West was released as the fourth single from Teenage Dream on February 16, 2011. She also served as a guest judge on British The X Factor later that month before releasing the album’s second single, “Teenage Dream”, in July.
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One of the Boys is a pop rock record, while Teenage Dream features disco influences. Before she began incorporating elements of pop, rock, and disco into music, Katy Hudson contained gospel. Perry cites Alanis Morissette and her 1995 album Jagged Little Pill as a significant musical inspiration. Growing up, she could not listen to secular music, but at 17 a friend played her a recording of “Killer Queen” by Queen, which had a profound effect on her. Perry collaborated with the tech company Apple Inc. starring in advertisements for their GarageBand music software where users could have “Remix Sessions” featuring her song, “Harleys in Hawaii”.
Perry’s third headlining tour, the Prismatic World Tour, began in May 2014 and concluded in October 2015. Prism was released on October 18, 2013, and has sold over 6 million copies as of September 2016. “Unconditionally” followed as the second single from Prism on October 16, 2013, and peaked at number 14 in the United States. She hosted Saturday Night Live on December 10, 2011, with Robyn as the episode’s musical guest.
Teenage Dream became the first album by a female artist to produce five number-one Billboard Hot 100 singles, and the second album overall after Michael Jackson’s Bad. She dedicated the music video to her song “Firework” to the It Gets Better Project. Many of her songs, particularly on Teenage Dream, reflect on love between teenagers; W magazine described the album’s sexual innuendos as “irresistible hook-laden melodies”. Her fifth studio effort Witness is an electropop album that she described as a “360-degree liberation” record, with themes including political liberation, sexual liberation, and liberation from negativity. Perry’s fourth album, Prism, is significantly influenced by dance and pop music.
In December 2010, Perry played Moe Szyslak’s girlfriend in the live-action segment from a Christmas episode of The Simpsons titled “The Fight Before Christmas”. Perry subsequently mocked the controversy on Saturday Night Live, where she was a musical guest and wore an Elmo-themed shirt showing large amounts of cleavage during one skit. Perry embarked on her second tour, the California Dreams Tour, in support of Teenage Dream from February 2011 to January 2012.
The first station to pick up the song was WRVW in Nashville, who were inundated with enthusiastic calls the first three days they played it. In March 2008, Perry made a cameo appearance as a club singer in the Wildfire episode “Life’s Too Short” and appeared as herself during a photo shoot that June on The Young and the Restless for the show’s magazine Restless Style. Madonna helped publicize the song by praising it on the JohnJay & Rich radio show in April 2008, stating “Ur So Gay” was her “favorite song” at the time. Perry provided backing vocals on Mick Jagger’s song “Old Habits Die Hard”, which was included on the soundtrack to the 2004 film Alfie. Perry worked with songwriters including Desmond Child, Greg Wells, Butch Walker, Scott Cutler, Anne Preven, the Matrix, Kara DioGuardi, Max Martin, and Dr. Luke.
Ballard then introduced her to Tim Devine, an A&R executive at Columbia Records, and she was signed as a solo artist. Perry began work on a solo record due for release in March 2005, but the record was shelved after Java was dropped. Transitioning from gospel music to secular music, Perry started working with producer Glen Ballard, and moved to Los Angeles at the age of 17. Her singing caught the attention of rock artists Steve Thomas and Jennifer Knapp from Nashville, Tennessee, who brought her there to improve her writing skills. Perry completed her General Educational Development (GED) requirements early at age 15, during her first year of high school, and left Dos Pueblos High School to pursue a music career.
Ferras was the first artist to get signed to her label, and Perry served as an executive producer on his self-titled EP. On June 17, 2014, Perry announced that she had founded her own record label under Capitol Records, titled Metamorphosis Music. In 2014, “Birthday” and “This Is How We Do” respectively followed as the album’s fourth and fifth singles, and reached the top 25 on the Hot 100. The tour grossed $59.5 million globally and won her the award for Best Live Act at the 2011 MTV Europe Music Awards. “Wide Awake” was released on May 22 as the re-release’s second single, peaking at number two on the Billboard Hot 100 and number one in Canada and New Zealand.
One of the songs she had recorded for her album with Ballard, “Simple”, was featured on the soundtrack to the 2005 film The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants. Perry signed with Red Hill Records and recorded her debut album, a contemporary Christian record titled Katy Hudson, which was released on March 6, 2001. The dance-inspired Prism (2013) spawned two U.S. number-one singles, “Roar” and “Dark Horse”, with their respective music videos making Perry the first artist to have multiple videos reach one billion views on Vevo and YouTube. With its bouncy, sharp-tongued second single, “Hot N Cold,” also proving popular, the album—much of which Perry wrote herself—eventually registered sales of more than three million copies in the United States. As a teenager, she learned to play the guitar and sought a musical career in Nashville with a Christian record label, but her debut album, the gospel-influenced Katy Hudson (2001), sold poorly. Katy Perry (born October 25, 1984, Santa Barbara, California, U.S.) is an American pop singer who gained fame for a string of anthemic and often sexually suggestive hit songs, as well as for a playfully cartoonish sense of style.
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