Katy Perry's confusing career

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Welcome to our bumper scandal episode about the one and only Katy Perry. There is so much one pack here. I'm excited to be back here with you, Mish. We wanted to revisit this series because Katy, I think, has been in the headlines so much. this year for so many reasons. I know people listening will probably remember all of them.

But I think what those headlines forget is how massive and influential she was for pop music back in the 2010s. And I remember recording this at the time being quite stunned about the level of critical and commercial success she... received. Oh, the prominence. Yeah. A hundred percent. It's really fascinating to deep her past and trace it all the way back to her very strict evangelical household to where she is now in 2025. It's been a roller coaster for sure. And it didn't end after we...

this scandal series together, as you said, Zaz, so many more headlines came out. So at the end of this episode, we will be jumping back into your ears to update you. With everything that's been happening in Katie's world since we released these episodes over a year ago. Yeah, so we will be touching on Katie's latest album.

143 or 143. In fact, terrible that I don't know which one it is. I think quite telling, perhaps. Her world tour, that Blue Origin space flight and her drip-fed separation from Orlando Bloom and then that little Justin Trudeau. blip thing. Lots to cover. Let's hit the chimes, DJ Gil.

All right, Zara, you said it very, very well. Before Katy Perry, there was Katherine Hudson. She was born on the 25th of October, 1984. She is the daughter of two Pentecostal preacher parents. She's often described her early life. childhood as tumultuous.

Of all the celebrities that we've kind of covered, for me, Katy Perry's childhood stands out as one of the most unique. Yes. I think one of the most fascinating. So she was the second of three kids. Her older sister, Angela, was born in 1982. Her younger brother, David, in...

1988. Now, according to BuzzFeed, they wrote this in 2015. Her parents, Keith and Mary, were Pentecostal preachers who moved wherever they felt the Holy Spirit call them, eventually settling into Santa Barbara, where they founded the now defunct Oasis Christian Church. But Katie's parents weren't exactly your typical religious types. In a profile for the Scotsman many, many years ago, the journalist Gary Graff reported her parents were pastors.

born again after a wild youth. Her mother dated Jimi Hendrix, her father made and dealt LSD with Timothy Leary. How fascinating. From all accounts, Katy's father, Keith, was and kind of still is a bit of a character. In that same article, BuzzFeed went on to say, aside from being Katy Perry's dad, Hudson is no ordinary preacher. He is a 63-year-old reformed LSD dropout.

who has dedicated the past four decades to spreading the gospel alongside his wife, Mary, who is also 63. Keith and Mary, we'll talk about them for just a second because this dynamic is fascinating. They met in Las Vegas in the 70s. where Keith was working as a chauffeur while he made a name for himself as a travelling preacher. Mary was a radio news director and freelance journalist and she came to Vegas while working on a piece.

investigating travelling preachers. Yeah, you can see where this is going. So they were married in Las Vegas in 1979. Shortly thereafter, Mary also began working as a Pentecostal pastor and evangelical minister. plays a pretty substantial role in Katie's origin story. It turns out her aunt Janice also worked as a topless showgirl at one of the hotels before she too became a preacher, while her grandmother Anne worked backstage as a seamstress.

Apparently, this is kind of iconic, Anne was known, so this is Katie's grandmother, for sewing pockets into the dancers' G-strings so they could stash their wedding rings there while they were on stage because a lot of them worried that if they left them backstage, they'd...

be stolen yeah and a quick are you in need of some intrigue recently it was revealed that the venue katie's aunt and grandmother worked at a place called the stardust hotel went on to become resorts world which was the location of Katy Perry's 2021 to 2023 residency, her Las Vegas residency over 40 years later. I'm obsessed with that fact. This family has lived like a thousand lives. Yes, they have. And they're all like, the lives, they change so quickly from working like, you know, in these.

Los Angeles clubs to them becoming...

Preachers. Yeah. Back to the timeline, though. After their wedding in 1979, Keith and Mary decided to take off around the country spreading the good word of the Lord. When asked about her experience growing up in the church, Katie told 60 Minutes this.

I was never able to watch MTV, I didn't really know who Madonna was, and I couldn't eat Lucky Charms because it was too closely associated with Lucifer, which is the devil's name. I mean, it was pretty intense, but I hope I turned out okay. Yeah, she went on to say, So I got a lot of that from them, especially my mother, and I'm happy for it.

the good you just take the good parts I feel like that's that's what you take when you're in your like 20s and you get to a little bit later in life you go actually I'm going to untangle some of the bad parts of my childhood yeah Katie started singing at the age of nine

where she would reportedly kind of pinch her older sister's Christian cassette tapes to practice around the house. Eventually, her parents agreed to enroll her in singing lessons. So soon after that, she was incorporated into her parents' ministry. She sang hymns. gospel music all throughout her teenage years, Mish. Yeah, it was during her teenage years that Katie decided to take the next step with her music. E! News wrote this. During her first year of high school, she received her GED.

and began pursuing a music career of her own. After making her way to Nashville, where she began recording demos and learning to write songs, she caught the attention of Red Hill Records, a youth market-focused imprint of Pamplin Music, an independent Christian... record label. They signed her to a deal and she got to work on what would be her first album.

Can I take us back just a tiny bit? Oh my God, please. We'll go on a bit of a meandering journey here. I wanted to unpack so much. Yeah. There was a point where Eilish and Chloe are amazing. journalists and researchers found that iconic Katy Perry GQ profile from 2014, which has actually since been taken down, Mish. I don't know if you've seen this, but I went to find it as I was sitting here and it's been taken down. But that never happens.

She obviously, Katy Perry obviously was religious growing up and she was religious herself. Do you remember when she told GQ that she prayed for bigger boobs and she got them? No but that's so real. That's so real. According to GQ. What Katy Perry prays for, Katy Perry gets. She was just 11 when she asked God for boobs so big that I can't see my feet when I'm lying down. It's the kind of prayer no one would expect for God to take seriously.

answer anyone's prayers no matter how small or ahem big. That's a way of proving his existence.

I'm obsessed with that. I'm obsessed with that too. But I do find it interesting that that profile has since been taken off the internet, that GQ one. In all of the scandals we've done, I don't think we've seen a celebrity profile from the likes of, you know, a GQ be stripped.

Why would that happen? I don't know. Anyway. Conspiracy. Yeah, huge conspiracy. But back to, as you say, she was signed for her first step into her music career with that independent Christian record label. Yeah, the first album was a self-titled collection of... Christian gospel songs. Katie was still using her surname Hudson for this. So it was under Katie Hudson. This album was released in 2001. She was 17 years old.

It had a single called Trust in Me, Zara, that was released on the 8th of Feb 2001. Yeah, the vibe's kind of like theatre kid angst with Christian message, I guess. Eilish has left the note. You can listen for yourself. We'll put a link in the show notes. We'll be conscious of copyright in this episode. I wonder if we could put, maybe we'll put a little clip of this on our Instagram so everyone can get the trust in me.

vibe yeah we can do that we'll also put a link in our show notes but yeah i didn't realize this either that she was singing as early as 17 and kind of her first song ever was A gospel song. When asked about the inspiration behind the song, a young Katy Perry said, but then Katy Hudson, this was my first try at songwriting. I really just felt he was saying, don't worry, child, trust in me. I just...

reception for the album was lukewarm. One critic From All Music reviewed this after Katie Hudson had rebranded to Katy Perry. So this was kind of like a retrospective. dive back into her archive, right? This guy gave her first album three stars and said it, and I quote, betrayed a heavy, heavy debt to Alanis Morissette. Oh dear. The same writer. who interpreted some of the song's lyrics as having sexual overtones despite the religious premise. They wrote,

charged as anything on one of the boys, which is Katie's first secular LP. It's interesting. In Katie's later career. sexuality and general horniness as we know became like kind of somewhat of a centerpiece yeah like almost like 1950s pin-up horniness yes you're so right with like the corsetti pushed up boobs yeah and the like Curled hair in that very particular way. Yeah, but we started with Christian Girl with maybe under or overtones.

of slight sexiness i was about to ask what was happening in the noughties because this was just the vibe yeah to succeed a lot of people pushed out the i'm a young woman who's christian but really wants to have sex Yeah, like the Britney Spears one, I guess. Very Britney Spears. Now, Christian reviewers were a bit kinder. They praised this album a little bit more. But the real problem that played... Katie around this time was that her record label was about to go under.

Yeah, exactly. So by the end of 2001, they'd already filed for bankruptcy. So Katie Hudson was released with next to no marketing or promo support. They sold a few hundred physical copies before the label completely collapsed. So it's not really the stellar start anyone wants to.

career it's not ideal katie and those around her at the time were also concerned about her stage name being too similar to kate hudson's so something had to be done about that mission pretty fast yeah it's worth noting that katie's rise to fame had several false stars

These days, of course, we know Katie ended up hitting the big time, securing a major label record, you know, absolutely killing it. But before we get to that point, we're going to have a look at some of the deals that didn't work out.

So in 2001, the same year she made her debut, she moved to Los Angeles permanently to start working with a producer called Glenn Ballard. He actually had worked with Alanis Morissette before. Yeah, and that was around this time that Katie actually... dropped the Christian angle from her music and she started writing more secular stuff by 2004 when she was about 20 years old she had officially changed her stage name to Katy Perry Perry was actually her mum's maiden name and she signed

the label Java, which was an imprint of Island Def Jam records. Except Java was dropped from Island Def Jam about a year after Katie signed with them. So really bad luck. The album she had been working on with Glenn. was actually shelved. So she found herself right back at square one.

Correct. So Glenn Ballard, the guy she was working with, then introduced her to reps from Columbia and they promptly signed her in 2006. While with Columbia, she worked on a record titled Fingerprints. Now, while Fingerprints itself never got released, some of the songs ended up on her first album.

album One of the Boys a little later on so it wasn't like a complete waste of time. Another one of the songs that Katie wrote for the original Fingerprints tracklist ended up going to other artists as well. For example, I Do Not Hook Up, which was recorded and released by Kelly Clarkson, was one of those songs, Mish. Yeah, as was Rock God, which ended up being recorded by Selena Gomez. Crazy. She couldn't catch a break. I also think this would have been a really stressful time.

I know she's young by like just general standards. She's in her 20s. She's still young. But to make it as a pop star, these are her golden, most valuable years. And she would have been sitting there, I reckon, going. What the fuck? My chance is slipping past and I can't... do anything about it. Yeah, 100%. In the 2012 documentary, Part of Me, Katie and her team explain how Columbia as a label were pretty preoccupied with trying to fit Katie into another artist's mould. For example,

They seem to think that she should have been making music more like Avril Lavigne. I mean, gift of hindsight, but that sounds ridiculous. I mean, of course, gift of hindsight. It is interesting, I guess. how pop stars are manufactured in that way and what brand they decide an artist will lean into. And it's just so interesting to me because I think it can dictate. an entire career like Olivia Rodrigo from the start was sort of that

Punky, rocky girl. American teen vibe, yeah. Yeah, 100%. Gracie Abrams kind of leaning into like the big collars. Indie girl. Yep. It's interesting because now that I'm thinking about it, if anyone's similar to Katy Perry, it's Sabrina. Carpenter. Yes, you're right. You're right. The big sort of sepia-toned, colourful. 1950s glam vibe. Colourful. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. You're right. Interesting. In Katie's words, she didn't want to be the second version of a...

another artist. She wanted to be the first Katy Perry. Just before she finished recording Fingerprints, she was dropped by Columbia. There are some reports that the label dropped her because they simply couldn't figure out how to place her or promote her yeah it took a while for them

To drop her, though, according to Part of Me, that documentary, they kept her in limbo for quite some time, allegedly because they were worried another label would swoop in and make her a massive star. So kind of doing that thing where it's like, we don't really know what to do with you, but we don't really want anyone else to have you.

And guess what? Another label did come in and sweep Katy Perry and that's when her career started to take off. But we are going to talk about that after the break. Mish, it is September in Melbourne, which means it should be warm, but some days are still cold enough for a full-blown tracksuit. Totally typical. Yeah, thankfully Elite 11 have dropped a new premium heavyweight loungewear collection. And let me tell you, they are the absolute goats of loungewear.

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Alright, so by this point in the timeline, Katy had been in the music industry long enough to have made some… pretty powerful connections and allies. A publicity executive who truly believed Katy Perry could be the next big deal took all of her demos from her time at Columbia and took them to Columbia's rival Capitol Records.

who then signed Katie in April of 2007. Yeah, so she was around 23 at this time, and this was the deal that stuck. In fact, Katie is still signed to Capitol Records to this day as well, so we know it worked. At the very beginning of her deal with Capitol, Abel linked her up with Dr. Luke, a music producer who was at the time best known for his work with Kelly Clarkson. So together they produced songs like Since You've Been Gone, Behind These Hazel Eyes and Pink, with whom they produced Who Knew.

in your hand another are you in need of cement reg as well as dr luke also produced forever and everything i'm not for the veronicas around this time too so he was pumping out quite a few hits he is prolific in the pop music space and it goes without saying guys we will circle back to dr luke in due course but we're going to stick with the timeline for now correct

Katy's first song for Capitol was a little track called You're So Gay, which dropped in November 2007. According to Katy, this song was released as a bit of an introduction to the Katy Perry project, not as a tradition.

single. It wasn't service to radio and basically only existed as an online offering. It came out as an EP a little while later but I mean for 2007 for something to be online only is... niche it is a bit niche it's kind of an interesting experiment I think here's what Katie said later about this during an interview at the time it wasn't meant to be a big single or show what the album was going to be all about that was for my internet bloggers so I'm not

For better or worse, You're So Gay did effectively represent the edgy, one-of-the-boys image that Katie wanted to project at the time. So, in the spirit of scandal Epsom musicians… Let's take a look at some of the lyrics, shall we? Yes. Oh, God. All right, I'll start. The first line of the song.

I hope you hang yourself with your H&M scarf while jerking off listening to Mozart. You bitch and moan about LA, wishing you were in the rain reading Hemingway. You don't eat meat and drive electrical cars. You're so indie rock it's almost an art. You need SPF 45. just to stay alive. You're so gay and you don't even like boys. Guys, oh my God. Why did I have to read that? It's wild. It is wild. It's also interesting to note that early commentary around this song was...

Yes, it's edgy and problematic and offensive, but it's also really catchy and well-produced as a pop song. Yep. I still am actually stuck on these lyrics. The opening line, I hope you hang yourself with your H&N scarf. It's just as on the nose as on the nose gets. Take this review to Michelle's Point from Entertainment Weekly.

I know the lyrics to Katy Perry's You're So Gay are 18 different kinds of wrong. The opening line about what she'd like for her wayward beau to do with his H&M scarf is not for the faint of heart, nor is it entirely safe for work. But I can't stop playing this jaunty little ditty.

on repeat i don't care that there's almost no chance corporate radio will embrace a song that includes the lines i can't believe i fell in love with someone who wears full makeup and you're so gay you don't even like boys i'm an out and proud fan of you're so gay yeah complicated Once you know the lyrics, I guess you can kind of see what the PR push was for Katy Perry, that she would be known as controversial. She was trying to make a splash and get her way in the door.

by saying things that people would take notice of, even if those things were controversial. Completely. And like that she would try to make a stir.

Make a stir? Is that what you do? Yeah. No, she's like titillated by stirring the pot. Yes. Katie's first official single, fully serviced to radio, was a little song called I Kissed a Girl, which dropped in April 2008. As we all know, this song was pretty much an immediate smash hit. It climbed to the top five of the Billboard chart within a couple of weeks of release. It reached number one in July 2008 and stayed there for seven weeks straight. Another questionably...

themed queerbaiting track from Katie. Yep. This time. Because the single hit the mainstream, the critics were a lot louder. Take this from Time magazine. Christian groups have taken issue with Perry's sudden sophistication, while gay activists are spoiled for choice between I Kissed...

a girl's apparent trivialization of lesbianism, and the fact that Perry's previous single, You're So Gay, with the opening lyric, I hope you hang yourself with your H&M scarf, makes her seem like a less than ideal spokeswoman for the cause. Let's break these.

critiques down for a second. A handful of critics at the time accused Katie of appropriating queerness and stereotyping gay people in their lifestyles. The loudest critics though had a much different issue with the song.

And it was actually a far more homophobic one. Shockingly, or maybe unshockingly, depending on how you want to come to this, the loudest criticism of this kind came from Katy Perry's own parents. Katy's mum, Mary, was quoted by... the daily mail in 2008 saying i hate the song it clearly promotes homosexuality and its message is shameful and disgusting katie knows how i feel we are a very outspoken family and she knows how disappointed her father and i are i can't even listen

to that song. The first time I heard it I was in total shock. When it comes on the radio I bow my head and pray. Wild. This is wild. It's just so interesting to know the environment and clearly the values that were instilled within Katy Perry while she was growing up. And then see the music that she launched with. Well, it's not like she was just slightly rebelling. She decided to go to the other end of the earth. Complete 180. Like if this was the messaging, like clearly Mother Mary.

is so comfortable saying this stuff publicly, imagine what was being said in Katy Perry's household growing up. A hundred percent. And then her first two singles are You're So Gay and I Kissed a Girl. It's fucking wild. It's fascinating. Like, what's the psychology there? I know, 100%. Now, Katie never directly publicly responded to her mother's comments. She did give the following quote to The Guardian around the time.

My parents are great. I mean, they still pray for me. They have their thoughts on who I will be and what they want me to be. But I have my own thoughts on that too. I stopped trying to change them at 21 because I was like, you're happy, you love what you do and I respect that. You're living your life and I'm living mine.

Very diplomatic. Incredibly diplomatic. About four years after I Kissed a Girl topped the charts, Katie actually sat down with an interview for Pride Source where she talked about the song and the public's reaction to it with more of a bird's eye.

lens like gift of hindsight. She said bisexuality was on the tip of everybody's tongue pop culturally. Even on television shows like Gossip Girl people were talking about it and it was becoming more of an accepted idea to be bi-curious and to be bisexual.

just took it over the edge for the public in some ways, but I think that anybody who saw a confusing message in those songs was either looking for a fight or taking it completely out of context. Anyone that really understood the songs understood the songs for what they were. I know I said she was giving a more. I don't know what to make of that. Yeah, I think we're not done, though, because 10 years after I Kissed a Girl first came out.

Katie said she probably would make an edit on the track if it came out today. Here's what she told Glamour in 2018. We've really changed conversationally in the last 10 years. We've come a long way. Bisexuality wasn't as talked about back then or any type of fluidity. If I had to write that song again, I probably would make an edit on it. Lyrically, it has a couple of stereotypes in it. Your mind changes so much.

in 10 years and you grow so much what's true for you can evolve yeah many people over the years have asked katie whether or not i kissed a girl was inspired by real life experiences on the record katie does mention how she had a crush on a friend of hers when she was a teenager. Of this, she told Grazia, When I was 15, I fell in love with a female friend. I thought she was beautiful and wanted to be like her. She had a huge impact on my life but I never told her how I felt.

yeah we also have to remember how katie's upbringing would have affected the way she thought and felt about queerness here's what she said during the 2017 national equality awards My first words were mama and dada, God and Satan. When I was growing up, homosexuality was synonymous with the word abomination and hell. A place of gnashing of teeth, continuous burning of skin and probably Mike Pence's ultimate guest list for a barbecue.

So most of my unconscious adolescence, I prayed the gay away at my Jesus camps. She went on. But then in the middle of it all, in the twist of events, I found my gift. And my gift introduced me to people outside of my bubble and my bubble started to burst. These people were nothing like I. In this speech, she also mentioned that she would dump her boyfriend if she had the chance to go out with Scarlett Johansson.

So I guess she is trying to say look my sexuality isn't as straightforward as being straight. of course yeah and i think as much as she says you know growing up i was taught one thing and as i got older

and learned to sing it was introduced to all these people my bubble was burst i imagine it would be really really hard to 100 override that when it's so inbuilt in you from the moment you grow up to the age that you know when you're about 20. yeah it would be very very hard and i think it would be very easy

people to turn around and say, well, she's never out and out, come out as anything or whatever it might be. But I think that's a very one note way of looking at her experience of the world properly. Yeah. I also think in your early twenties.

You can be very black and white and emphatic with how you approach things. I'm not all that surprised that she flipped so suddenly between these kind of opposing viewpoints. I feel like that's very reminiscent of how I felt in my early 20s. Yeah, exactly. Let's get...

back to our timeline though so the year was 2008 katie was on top of the world and the charts with i kissed a girl she was 24 years old this point in an artist's career i guess is pretty make or break she had one global hit with i kissed a girl Could she follow it up? Like, who am I thinking about? Friday, Friday. I can't believe I just sung that. You know, like One Hit Wonders. Yeah, but that wasn't a hit. That was hated. That was the most disliked video of that year.

Yeah. Did you think Rebecca Black's Friday was a hit? It was a hit. Did you like it when it came out? Everyone liked it, ironically. Yes, it did. You think people liked Rebecca Black's Friday? I think they're lying to themselves if they didn't. There was a reason it went bananas. Something that's so despised can't be hated. Otherwise, it would never be played. I see where you're going, though.

You risk becoming a one hit wonder if your first song is so widely known, so widely played. And derided. Like people would have said I Kissed a Girl was annoying as well. Yep. Okay, fair. I see where you're going. Anyway, she obviously wasn't. I don't know why I went down that path. Katie and Rebecca Black, one and the same. Really meandering today. Now, Katie's debut album, One of the Boys, came out on June 17, 2008, and it was met with...

mixed reviews. I think what is interesting to note here and what Gil kind of found in her digging is that from researching the episode, she felt like the reviews of this record were weirdly vitriolic. She was like, maybe it's 2008 talking, but it's worth noting that there was layers to these reviews. Layers of animosity. Yeah, let's take this one from the Rolling Stone where they gave the album two stars out of five.

But Perry's attention-grabbing doesn't feel very rebellious. On the new wavy club single I Kissed a Girl, a vanilla recounting of her chick-on-chick exploits, she sounds like the type who makes out with her BFF just to get a dude's attention. And when she's not acting out, she's a total snooze.

Yes, Perry has a heart, but it sounds like her bustier's too tight for her to use it. Fucking hell. There's another two-star review from The Guardian. Katy Perry's producers furnish the punchy soft rock that has become the default signifier of pop attitude, and Perry... with self-congratulatory sass that never rings true. How many people will mistake phony girl power for genuine individuality? We'll see. It's written so confusingly. Sorry to that writer.

Yeah. Can people just lighten up? I know. It's a fucking pop album. Why do we need to?

Yeah, I know. Despite these reviews, one of the boys ultimately proved that Katie was here to stay. I mean, it spawned four hit singles in total. We had I Kissed a Girl, Hot and Cold. thinking of you and waking up in Vegas. What's your fave out of those four? Every time I think of hot and cold, I think of MasterChef. I love MasterChef, but whenever something's commercialised like that, it ruins it for me. Correct. Apart from...

I think catchiest is I Kissed a Girl. It's the catchiest song, the one that I hear in my head first. But as we've said, the premise is clunky. I think Hot and Cold's my favourite. want to give us a rendition no i actually already gave a rendition of something earlier of which no one will mention again all right so 2008 was katie's breakthrough year

And it was also the year she met her future husband. So let's zoom in on the 2008 MTV VMAs. Katie was nominated for five awards, including Best New Artist. It was backstage there that she first met the then 33-year-old English comedian, Russell Brand.

who is hosting the show. I think we all have an idea of who Russell Brand is these days, but... In the timeline, we're in 2008. So we're going to recap who Russell Brand was at the time he met Katy Perry. As you said, Zaz, he was a comedian. In the UK, aside from his stand-up specials, he was known for appearing a lot on the BBC.

and Channel 4 because he was hosting various television shows at the time. To anyone outside of the UK, he was probably best known for starring in the films St Trinian's and Forgetting Sarah Marshall. I reckon it's the last thing, Forgetting Sarah Marshall. When I think of Russell Brand at this time, I think of that film because he was essentially playing himself in that. Because it's worth noting that Russell's public image was...

definitively the bad boy. He was known as a very edgy, flamboyant, rock and roll style character. He'd publicly spoken about his past with heroin addiction, plus his quote unquote sex addiction. What do you remember about Russell Brand at this time? just bad boy i know he said that before but like just this ultimate kind of rock he even though he wasn't a rock star he felt like a rock star like the ultimate bad boy rock star yeah when i think of him i think of his hair and i think of his

accent. Like he had this very kind of like rough way of communicating that was charming. Like I think it would be... a lie to say he wasn't charming. You only get to that level of success when you have some kind of magnetism about you. Correct. And even by 2008, he had more public controversies than we can even begin to cover in this episode. I mean...

It's probably a separate conversation about whether there's a scandal series in Russell Brand down the track, but also, as we know, there's also... a lot of dark allegations that have come out about Russell Brand more recently, but we're going to stick to our timeline right now. In October 2008, both he and Jonathan Ross had been suspended by the BBC for a series of prank calls made to faulty...

Towers actor Andrew Sachs. Basically what happened was that Russell and Jonathan were supposed to interview Andrew. When he didn't answer the phone call, they left a series of lewd messages on his voicemail live on air. One of those messages included Russell Brand boasting to Andrew Sachs about having sex with his granddaughter, who he had briefly dated. Now, a lot of publications wrote about this at the time. One such publication was The Guardian. In their coverage of this incident,

they summarised Russell Brand's controversies to date. The article reads, Russell Brand's career trajectory is all too often get hired, get cocky, get sacked, which is pretty much what happened last week at the BBC as well as at XFL. for reading out porn, during a Stephen Coogan film for using sex workers, and at MTV for turning up the day after 9-11 dressed as Osama Bin Laden and introducing his heroin dealer to Kylie Minogue.

Directly back to that, he turned up to work at MTV the day after September 11, dressed as Osama Bin Laden. Like, I know all of the stuff we just read is kind of diabolical. But that. It's wild that that's not the thing we think of when we think of Russell Brand. You know, that I didn't even know that until we did this episode.

Also wild to me that he was hired by the BBC after all of that. Like the BBC being the UK's ABC. Yeah, exactly. Doesn't this speak to his magnetism? Like how much magnetism do you have to have for the BBC? To go, you know what? Despite all of that. We're just going to pretend that a Summer Bin Laden thing the day after 9-11. We're going to pretend that didn't happen. Correct. I mean, and this is the guy who was hosting the MTV VMAs in 2008 when he met Katy Perry. So, as you know.

He was quite controversial when Katie and him met backstage. Apparently, as the story goes, Russell asked Katie if she would make a celebrity cameo in his new film Get Him to the Greek, which was filming at the time, Mish. She said yes, and in her... scene for the film her character and Russell's character were required to make out.

Funnily enough, that scene was actually cut from the final version of the film. Here's what Katy Perry had to say about filming that make-out scene with Russell Brand. When he was filming Get Him to the Greek, I did a cameo with him. My scene called for me to... make out with him. And on the way down the stairs after the scene, I was hopping like a bunny. I hop like a bunny when I'm happy. I get a bit childlike.

Hello, hello everyone. It's 2025 Us here to take you from hopping like a bunny to episode number two in this scandal series. Let's see what happened next for Katy Perry and Russell Brand. All right, Zara, I can't wait to talk about this.

As you said, it's 2008. Katy Perry and Russell Brand have just met and made out for a movie, but then they moved on with their lives. They made out on this set and then they didn't really speak. Yeah, they didn't actually meet again until the following year's VMAs in September. 2009. Now the 2009 VMAs went down in music history for two reasons. One, it was the Kanye West, Taylor Swift.

I'm a let you finish incident. And it was also the home of Lady Gaga's iconic performance of paparazzi. Now, I will say.

I don't remember that hugely. But Gil does do the research for this and she is Lady Gaga's biggest fan. And if she says it went down in pop music history, then it went down in pop music history. She said, you know, the one where she ends up hanging over... the stage covered in blood i vaguely remember it but gil i'm glad i'm glad you loved this moment and i'm sure many of our listeners would have loved this moment as well now another major pop culture moment that happened at the 2009 vmas

was a 25-year-old Katy Perry and a 34-year-old Russell Brand hitting it off. Yes, apparently during rehearsals for the show, Katy threw a plastic bottle. I think, or some form of bottle. She threw a bottle, but we don't know of what material. I know, I think I should have just added a little bit of spice with the plastic. Well, for his face's sake, I hope it was plastic and not...

glass i think it would have been plastic because she threw it at him to get his attention in his second memoir he recounted meeting her again as paraphrased by the independent russell brand described how perry stood beaming and pleased with herself after she caught his attention with the bottom

Flirty banter ensued before Perry gave him the Alexander McQueen bracelet she was wearing as a keepsake. Then, looking into her eyes quietly, I said, I don't need anything to remind me of you. That is how I fell in love. performer wrote. Brandon Perry were later seen kissing at a VMA's after party hosted by Lady Gaga as a new Hollywood romance had officially begun. Wow. Katie and Russell were essentially a done deal after that. They were together from that moment onwards.

There's a lot to be said about this relationship, how quickly it moved, how quickly it unraveled. To discuss it, Gil's put this in. It is important to keep in mind, perhaps, that Katie was a decent bit younger than Russell Brand. And she's nine years his junior. She was also at a pretty chaotic point in her life. And it was only about to get more chaotic from here on out. She was one of the biggest celebrities in the world. And she was on track to becoming the...

biggest perhaps of the era, if we're talking about 2008, 2009, 2010, Katy Perry might have been top of the tree. Yeah, I think she was. Now... Let's talk about how the media were writing about Katie's new relationship with Russell Brand at this time. Here's a snippet from the Sydney Morning Herald with the headline, Russell Brand forsakes group sex for Katy Perry.

If we want a Gillism for today, not to be this guy, she wrote, but whatever happened to journalism? Now, in that piece, it read, Russell Brand has vowed to give up threesomes to please Katy Perry, the British comedian who is known for his womanising ways and has... been linked to a string of famous beauties over the years has promised to behave himself and not get intimate with anyone other than his new girlfriend. Oh that's very generous of him. Romance is not dead. No.

What a man. The article then went on to quote a woman who recounted a supposed threesome with Russell that she had had in the past that went on for, and I quote, hours. And then we had this, this reporting from The Mirror. His little black bookie-wook has been a trusty companion over the years, but now it's a closed chapter to Russell Brand. He won't be needing all those ladies' phone numbers anymore because the reformed Lothario has pledged to remain faithful.

So it's like clearly a big deal that Russell Brand is dating someone and like monogamous. So the relationship was a bit of a whirlwind to say the least. By January 2010, so it was just four months after they officially started dating, they were actually engaged, Mish. Now, apparently the couple were engaged in India and according to Katie, the...

The proposal itself was elaborate. She said it involved fireworks, elephants, Indian dancers, horse-drawn carriages and tens of thousands of flower petals. Here's what Russell said on GMTV in the UK around this time. He said, That would be good. Marriage was a deep craving within me. I mistook it for lust. I thought I was promiscuous, but it turns out that I was just thorough. To get to the right one, I'm ever so happy. It's just thorough. It's quite a line. That's quite incredible spin.

Yeah, by this time, Katie's career was totally soaring. She was working on her second album. She even stated to the BBC that Russell had inspired many of the songs on this album. As per the BBC, Perry admits she wrote the lyrics to the new track, Firewall.

after Brand showed her a passage in the novel On the Road. It was a paragraph that he said I was like. In the book, he was talking about how he wanted to be around people who were buzzing, fizzing, and making people go, ah, like fireworks across the sky. I guess that's my whole vibe. I want to make people go ah in so many different ways. I want to be a living firework.

Funny, but I do really like that sentiment. I love it. I want to be a living firework is actually very wholesome and cute. No, it's amazing. The line that made me laugh is I want to make people go, ah. I want to make people go, ah. It just sounds like a euphemism. Now, around the time of their engagement, Katie said that Russell was a...

genius who made her smarter by being around him. She also said that Russell was the boss of their relationship, that's a quote, and that she, and I quote, liked it. I've been waiting for someone I couldn't steamroll. Interesting. I always find it fascinating when a female partner refers to her male partner as a genius. Maybe in some circumstances it's true and her male partner is a genius. I don't know why, it's just a red flag to me.

Yeah, it's an interesting point. Do you feel that if a male partner refers to his female partner as a genius? No, probably because it goes against the gender stereotype. But I think if... I think there is a level of infantilisation regardless if it was... a female to a male or a male to a female I understand what you mean I think to infantilise your partner full stop is probably not going to encourage a healthy dynamic I'm not going to call it an unhealthy dynamic

But I would say, I mean, it's so funny if Mitch and Ollie are listening to this, that you're smart, but you're not geniuses. No, well, it's like you're positioning your partner as a prophet or something. It's deifying them. It's deifying them. And I'm not sure that's ever conducive to a healthy 50-50 balanced dynamic. No, you can't worship the ground your partner walks on. You need to also see them as flawed. I think to love. people well yeah and to be loved by them

If I tried to call Mitch a genius, he'd be like, shut up. Please don't do that. Wait, what do you mean? Okay, so at this point we have officially entered 2010. We have to spend some time with Katie's... biggest album to date teenage dream. As per Gil, this album changed the trajectory of pop music forever.

Forever. It did. I agree, Gil. Now, the first introduction to this album came with California Girls, that's girl with a U, not an I, which dropped on May 7, 2010. It rocketed to number one on the Billboard Hot 100. Almost immediately. It stayed there for six weeks straight. How did she back up with that, Zara? The next single was Teenage Dream, the song. It went straight to number one as well. Then Firework came next.

which also went to number one. These are all bangers. Yeah, then E.T. followed Firework, which also, you guessed it, went to number one. Finally... She released last Friday night, TGIF, as a single, which also went to number one. I mean, it's foolish of me to say I can't believe they all went to number one because all of these songs I know...

The words, too. They were everywhere. I just don't think I was consciously thinking about how every song she was releasing from the same album went to number one. Like, this is unheard of. It's wild success. I think my barometer for crazy mainstream success is if Vicky And... my mother knows the song. And I think mum knows all of those. Yeah, I think that's interesting. Which is crazy. Now.

The only other artist who has ever achieved this milestone was Michael Jackson with his 1987 album, Bad. After Michael, Katie became the second person to ever have five number one singles on the same album. She is the first ever. woman to achieve it it is unbelievable and I think it is worth repeating here that Katy Perry was literally on top of the world at this time like no one was doing it like her and I think it's very easy

to forget that. Like, she's not just famous for famous's sake. No. She's famous because, as you said, she was the most successful pop star of this era. Now... I think it's also worth saying if there's one thing we've learned doing this, when the eyes of the world are all on you, it usually means there's an odd scandal here or there about to come. And this one feels particularly odd now. This one does feel odd.

Katie's debut appearance on the children's television show Sesame Street was in September 2010, and it was… Quite the scandalous one, Zara. In her segment, Katie sang a kid-friendly version of her song Hot and Cold alongside Elmo. It's very cute. We watched this on YouTube. Only... When it made its way to YouTube, the comment section got a bit odd. It got a bit heated. It did. Now, to preface the next bit, for this Sesame Street appearance, Katie wore a lime.

green dress. It's a pretty dress. The only issue was some people thought the dress was too low cut for children's television. Take this from The Guardian. Katy Perry should have thought long and hard before upstaging a megastar like Elmo in a segment filmed for Sesame Street that appears to teach children the lesson C is for cleavage to the dismay of too many parents. The Los Angeles Times boggers spotted comments such as

such as you're going to have to rename Sesame Street, Cleavage Avenue, and my kid wants milk canal. No. We also need to read you out TMZ's headline for the story, which was Katy Perry's honkers too hot for Sesame Street. I do want to know. I've got this clip up right now.

What's the line? Like if we're talking about what's appropriate for children's television, I'm looking at this dress and don't get me wrong. It is pop star-esque. It's figure hugging. Like you can see a slight amount of boobage.

I don't think I would look at this though and be like, oh my God, that so crosses the line. You know, I can so imagine our listeners trying to imagine this dress and thinking it was like this V-neck to her belly button. It wasn't that at all. It just sort of like, it was a light. A cupping. A cupping of her boobs. Yeah, no, I would not have looked at this and thought this was inappropriate.

at all because i do think there is a conversation about like what children's television looks like i don't think it's all folk concern no no no conversation starter but the fact that this sparked that conversation i was like i don't know it would be interesting trying to do like a visual challenge of land on the outfit that officially crosses the line. It's so blurry and it's so hard to actually figure out.

What isn't okay for kids to see? What's fascinating here is the backlash to this outfit got so bad that Sesame Street pulled the segment from the show. Now, as we said, it's still available on YouTube, but it's crazy. The Sesame Street team said this in a statement. Sesame Street has a long history of working with celebrities across all genres, including athletes, actors, musicians and artists. Sesame Street has always been written on two levels for the child and adult.

What did we say? Like, what is that? A really long statement that says absolutely nothing. Now, Katie took all of the ridiculousness in good fun. She actually made an appearance on SNL to laugh about the whole situation. She did a skit with Amy Poehler and Maya Rudolph where she wore... an actually low cut shirt with a push up bra and it had Elmo's face on it. Yeah, which I actually think is always the best way to respond to.

Any controversy, just go on SNL and make a joke about it. Guys, we have a lot more to talk about, particularly the breakup between Russell Brand and Katy Perry. But first, a word from today's sponsor.

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of Shameless possible. Alright, so Sesame Street drama aside, everything was going Like all guns blazing for Katy Perry at this time. Even her romantic life seemed to be doing pretty well. At least it appeared that way from the outside. Russell Brand and Katy Perry got married in October 2010, smack bang in the middle of her.

ridiculous run of number one singles she would have been making so much money around this time yeah i think it's also worth noting as well there was no prenup for this wedding as well as she was making all this money now the couple were married in india and here's how the

I described the ceremony and reception. The guests immersed themselves in the Indian-inspired wedding, which gave them a chance to ride camels and elephants. But the extravagant experience didn't end there. The comedian and teenage dream songstress entertained their attendees with a Bollywood banquet. drummers, dancers, fire eaters and snake charmers. I did kind of chat to our researchers, Eilish and Chloe, about whether

Russell Brand or Katy Perry have any Indian heritage? I was going to, yeah, bring this up. From what they can find on the internet. They don't. That's from their research. They can't, which I think is also interesting to note here. Yeah. Sometime during the celebrations, Russell and Katie took the time to get matching tattoos, which translated to go with the flow.

One wedding guest, though. This celebration wasn't all actually a celebration at all. In fact, according to his account, things were actually going badly in Russell and Katie's relationship as early as the night before the wedding.

Yeah, as per the mirror, comedian David Baddiel said the cracks in their relationship formed well before they tied the knot. He once recalled, I was there. Russell did tell me that they had a big row the night before they got married. I did think when he said that of asking, are you sure? But I didn't.

say that, perhaps I should have done. If my friend went to the mirror and said this, I'd be like, what the fuck? It's so embarrassing. Like, shut up. Russell and Katie were now husband and wife though, but they didn't actually have a lot of time to bask in marital bliss at all because... Katie was about to head out on a global tour to support Teenage Dream. So let's lay it out. Russell and Katie start dating in September 2009.

By Jan 2010, they're engaged. They're married in October. And then her world tour started in February 2011. This is the tour I went to when she came to Melbourne. I love this view. I wish I went to that tour. It was actually amazing. I still have really great memories of it.

Oh, hit after hit after hit. If you take into account as well all of Katie's studio time, her press commitments, her rehearsal commitments between September 2009 and Feb 2011, not to mention as well Russell's work, what you're left with is... a very small window for them to be an actual couple as well as sort of the public element like their ability to have a normal relationship that you and i would know was sort of

Impossible. So limited. Here's what Russell Brand's friend, the Oasis lead guitarist, Noel Gallagher. So he's joining David Battiel in Spilling the Beans. Had to say about Russell's ability to function in a relationship. Now, just to...

preface this this is no recounting a conversation so it might be a bit confusing but bear with me he calls me up once and says what happens when she wants to watch one film and i want to watch another he's gone it's doing my head in and i'm like is that it let her fucking watch the film

And then he goes, all right, just let her watch it then. And I go, fucking let her watch it. Don't watch it. Have you not got two television sets? All the money you've got? At that point, I thought, this ain't going to go much further than this. Wow. That was my acting moment. I was in awe. You were reading that and giving it your all. And I was thinking, girl, this is your moment. That was my moment.

Also, that's really fucking weird. It is. To call your friend and be like, she wants to watch things that I don't want to watch. It's harking back to the genius thing. It's giving. I've never had to compromise in my entire life. Like she has opinions that don't always match my own. Fans did get a totally unprecedented look into Katie's marriage in the documentary Part of Me.

Part of me was filmed throughout the California Dreams tour. If you're a Katy fan or just a celebrity fan, you have to watch this documentary. I've watched it maybe five times.

It is one of the best. Yeah, I haven't watched it in years actually. So good. Yeah, now we're talking about the documentary now because it was filmed during this period of Katie's life. Keep in mind though it gets... sometimes confusing because we didn't know about this like it wasn't released till 2012 but we are going to kind of talk about what we now know as it was happening as demonstrated during this doco pretty much every single hour of katie's life was scheduled during this period

She had shows every night, then meet and greets, press, and never had any more than three days off at a time. I'm such a weak bitch. I could never. Oh, my God. Not at all. During those three days, Katie was shown flying across the world to spend time with Russell. Now, if that sounds... a bit rough that Katie was flying out to him, given she was on a world tour, and not him flying out to her, you should know that Katy Perry's team thought the same.

point during part of me katie's manager asked her if her husband planned to fly out to her rather than the other way around katie replied he should come to me but he's not yes In December 2011, the Daily Mail ran the following story. Katy Perry and husband Russell Brand had a massive fight before deciding to spend Christmas 7,000 miles apart. Here's a snippet from that piece.

And now it has been suggested the couple's separation over the festive period was because of a huge argument. According to Us Weekly, a source close to the couple said... They had a massive fight. She was like, fuck you, I'm going to do my own thing. Meanwhile, the source said that Russell replied, fine, fuck you too.

Sounds really loving and awesome. Give me some of that. Merry Christmas. The writing was clearly on the wall. On December 30, 2011, the news broke. Russell Brand filed for divorce from Katy Perry. The public reaction was... Not all that surprised. It's fascinating to me. So that's obviously five days after or six days after Christmas, whatever the maths is. Who was leaking about the Christmas thing? Like who in their lives is going...

for the tabloids about this. Noel Gallagher and David Battiel. I'm so confused how that even gets out. Now, Russell released the following statement.

upon news of the divorce sadly katie and i are ending our marriage i will always adore her and we will remain friends here's the thing that's weird about this story right so we just said On December 30, news broke. Katy Perry later revealed that Russell only texted her on December 31.

to tell her that he was filing for divorce so he gave the statement and told the world before she's like that was a day after the news went public so something's not adding up either katie's misunderstood the dates or like misremembered the dates

Or the public found out and Katie found out the day after. And maybe in Russell Brand's mind, he was like, this is a way to let her down easy. I'll tell the world. I wouldn't be surprised knowing what we know of Russell Brand. Same. Here's what Katy Perry told Vogue a couple of years after the dust settled on this.

He's a very smart man and I was in love with him when I married him. Let's just say I haven't heard from him since he texted me saying he was divorcing me on December 31, 2011. Why would she forget? That's the thing. It's also New Year's Eve. Like you would remember. Unless there's some level of confusion here based on time zones. Yeah.

I think we're being too charitable to Russell Brandt. I think Katy Perry's putting that in. It's so specific. Yeah, you're right. She wants us to know that she found out later. Yeah, I think she's just telling us about the timelines. Now, what I find really interesting about this whole thing. Me too. I can't wait to talk about this. And I'm so glad Gil and Chloe, our beloved researchers, stumbled upon this because I had no idea. If you've watched part of me...

the documentary, you'll be thinking, well, I saw that text message come through. Duh, seen it. Because they position it, the documentary makers, position it as if Katy Perry was backstage on her tour when Russell Brand texted her to divorce her. However... Well, that was because, yeah, they showed this very fraught moment where she was like collapsing and then had to go on stage. Yeah, like there was a moment where you're like, she's not going to be able to get it together to go on stage.

and he's just ended their marriage like how is she going to be able to perform tonight they never say anything explicitly though in that doco right they never say what the message is they don't it's just in the next scene they talk about the divorce yes so it's positioned in a way that you kind of connect the dots

What's fascinating is that it isn't possible that the footage we see in that documentary was the divorce text message because on December 31 or December 30 or anywhere near this time period, there wasn't a concert. So it's pretty clear that Katie was upset about a different text message on her phone. Who knows? Maybe it wasn't from Russell at all. Well, it might have probably been. Look.

I don't think it's wild for me to say that they might not have had the most stable relationship. I wouldn't be surprised if he was threatening to break up with her or there was like an argument that was happening over text message. Or she saw something from someone else that she might not like about the marriage. I'm sure it was indirectly.

about it related to the divorce but it wasn't the divorce text message over the next couple of years katie revealed a little bit more about how the marriage ended and what it was like to go through such a public divorce in 2013 she spoke to Marie Claire about what it was like to learn that her marriage was over in the middle of a tour.

She said there were two weeks of my life after I found out the truth of my marriage where I was like, okay, all right, I can't feel this. This is too intense right now. I was just like eating flaming hot Cheetos and drinking and that's it. In that same interview, she said that she felt...

suicidal after the dissolution of her marriage this feeling inspired the song by the grace of god on her third album prism yeah here's one of her quotes there are two ways you can go you can either nurture yourself or go destructive i have gone down the destructive path

and that didn't work for me. You dig deep beyond those scars and find that soft tissue again and you massage and nurture it and bring it to life little by little through serving yourself well. I did it through hikes and vitamins and therapy and prayer and good friends. really love that.

Yeah, she also mentioned that Russell Brand was controlling. She said he really wanted me to have children and I knew I wasn't ready. I think it was a way of control. I think it was part of like, if I have a kid, then I would have to sacrifice. I'd have to be home more. I really wanted to have a kid, but I knew I wasn't ready for it.

it wasn't like hey let's have a kid because we're in love I hate that and in part of me Katie said this at first when I met him he wanted an equal and I think a lot of times strong men do want an equal and then they get that equal and they're like I can't handle the equalness

It's so true. It reminds me of that song by Casey Musgraves called Breadwinner. Have you listened to that song? No idea what you're talking about. Really? I love that song. Maybe because it's like an anthem, I think, if you have ever had this sense in your brain about relationships. Do you want to Google the lyrics? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Am I Googling or are you Googling? I'll Google. Well, I don't want to read them to you. Okay, okay. Casey Musgraves.

What part of the song should I read? Okay, why don't I read you the chorus? Okay. He wants a breadwinner. He wants your dinner until he ain't hungry anymore. He wants your shimmer to make him feel bigger until he starts to feel insecure. I wish somebody would have told me the truth. Say he's never going to know what to do with a woman like you. Like that is this exact essence of what Katie was saying as well. So that's a good song. Oh, I love that. I also love, I mean, this opening.

verse isn't as impressive as what you just read but when he hangs out with a woman like you he says he ain't pressed by all your success tell you he's different from all the rest yeah god a universal experience for women i think so so that's what katie said

What about what Russell said? First of all, you guys might remember, we briefly touched upon it. Katie and Russell did not have a prenuptial agreement, which meant that when they divorced, legally, Russell was entitled to 50% of everything Katy Perry had earned while they were together. Vice versa, but let's be real, Katie was...

The moneymaker, the breadwinner in this relationship. Correct. Nice. And what did Katie earn while they were together? Well, just a cool US 44 million, which was no big deal. But in a rare occurrence of grace from Russell Brand, he didn't actually stake a claim to Katie's... fortune. Here's what he told Howard Stern about that decision. I've got a good job. I'm not taking money from women.

You need a backhander. I'm not taking money from those little plebs. Yeah. It is really interesting, I think, because it's like, well, fundamentally the right thing to do, but I don't know if the motivations are fundamentally the right ones. Completely agree. Let's leave it there.

what did he have to say about the actual relationship dynamic well after watching his 2015 documentary which is called brand second coming it became quite clear how he felt about the marriage Gill has put it as this, the overarching implication, the through line of this documentary, is basically Russell's fight against the disease of fame, wealth and celebrity. Of course, his relationship with Katie is essentially positioned as the pinnacle of evil in his life and the world at large.

Jesus Christ. So, for example, when they were together, Russell did some work for Comic Relief, which sent him to Kenya. While he was there, he witnessed the extreme poverty of the third world. And in the documentary, he explained that he had trouble reconciling it all. He said the stuff in Africa, it hit me.

really really hard and then what's sort of the secondary wave of realization is that you get on with your life since then i've been to more fucking bullshit fashion shows i've been to more premieres i'm associated with the very thing that i detest vapid vacuous plastic constructed mindless celebrity. That's the Say West Swimming In.

uh him was he married to katy perry again great acting thank you he went on fame can be a very corrupting and corrosive phenomena in people's lives i think it's the right thing for her to pursue what she's pursuing i mean she's like a mass famous pop star. I think that probably takes a lot of energy and focus and will. I think we were going in different directions. Impossibly different directions. I can't stand this man. Why is he positioning a trip?

to kenya it's personally it's like shrouded in white saviorism it is and then it's like it's like i did one trip to kenya and i'm now the most holier than thou person on the planet i'm here for the greater good it's the smallest man who ever lived who can't handle your partner's your female partner's success so instead of getting your head around it

You have to seek something else in the world to prove that the reason she's successful is because she's vapid and vacuous. You have to denigrate it. And all of the words he used, he's applying to her. Vapid, vacuous, plastic.

constructed i just think there's so it's loaded so gross i also think this quote from when they were actually still together tells an interesting story too. He said, It's definitely good. I'm with someone I love. And it's also good, I suppose, that that person is a pop star. But I think it's not a resolution to anything spiritual. This is my suspicion. At some point, to be happy, I'll have to walk away from all of it.

Oh my God, how was she even married to him for this long? This is literally a guy that couldn't stand how successful he was. He pretended that he was finding something deeper. It wasn't anything deeper than his tiny fucking ego. Yeah, it's that classic thing with some men. The line between loving their female partner and hating them is minuscule.

It's terrifying. So Russell and Katie's divorce was finalised by July 2012. But before we say goodbye to him in this series, I think we do have to recap, just do a really top line recap of some of the disturbing allegations against him that have come out.

since this divorce in the last sort of last year yeah well it's a big part of the story yeah for those unaware in december 2023 russell was questioned by police for a second time over six non-recent sexual assault allegations as per abc news in september british

media outlets published claims by multiple women of being sexually assaulted or raped by Mr. Brand between 2006 and 2013 at the height of his fame. The accusers have not been named. The comedian, author and get him to the Greek actor has denied the saying his relationships were always consensual.

Yeah, it's also worth noting he's also become very divisive online and dabbles in conspiracy theories. His Twitter feed is chaotic and confusing to say the least. That's Russell, though. Let's get back to Katie because it's Katie's series in the middle of 2012.

She was around 28 years old and there was a new guy on the scene. It was 34-year-old John Mayer. I forgot about this. I forgot too. But this time John Mayer was well and truly established as a musician, of course. He'd had his classic hit. body is a wonderland way back in 2002 never got better than that that was really the peak wasn't it oh so he was kind of known as the like soft rock star who was the your body is a wonderland guy

Yes. What a song, though. Yeah, in early August 2012, Katie and John were spotted hanging out together at his house in LA. per e-news they were having sleepovers at his house that's nice by the end of that month it seemed as though the whole thing was over though before it had begun

E! News collated a few different sources on the short-lived romance. As they were published, the crux of them were that they were just going to end up as friends. It was a short-lived romance. They were having fun. They were having fun, but that also John Mayer fucked over her over. Yeah. So a bit going on. E! News referred to John Mayer as an old hound dog. Sort of is. Bring back journalism. I know. By early September 2012, though.

They were kind of back on. They were caught canoodling at a music festival in LA. We're back, baby. Now, this happened a bit during Katie's relationship with John. They were pretty on and off again. It was hot and cold, as you might say. Another Gillism. Well done, Gill. were on though, they were on, capital O, capital N. During one of his concerts in July 2013, John Mayer dedicated his song, A Face to Call Home to Katie.

He told the audience, she is more incredible than I ever thought. She was so patient as to continue to get to know and love me. To Katie, who is my face to call home. Is it giving? She was so patient, so I basically cheated at the start. Like, do you think? Yeah. She was so patient. I'm an old hound dog. Yeah. And also some of the reporting was that he fucked over a bit. Anyway.

Katie and John even recorded a song together. It's called Who You Love and it came out in August 2013. It was part of John's sixth album, Paradise Valley. Familiar? No. And I was a John Mayer fan. I actually went to his concerts. Did you? Yeah. I forgot about that. I was a big John Mayer fan. I actually still try to put his music on out in the office. It just always gets randomly turned off. So Katie and John dated on and off until Feb 2014. So kind of together.

You know, nearly two years. Apparently Katie called it off for good. Yeah. So we're now in 2014. Katie's 30 and she's right in the middle of preparing for her latest world tour. It's the Prismatic Tour to celebrate her third album, Prison. But long before Lorde and Charlie XCX were working it out on the remix, another feud between two pop divas was dominating the entertainment news cycle. That's right, everyone. Here we go. Let's go. It's time for the Katy Perry.

and Taylor Swift back up dancer saga. Yep. This is where Tasmania shines. I always love it. You know what? Let's just start telling the story. Now... This is a really classic example of a celebrity feud that in hindsight seems like ridiculous and completely avoidable. But remember that both women were in their 20s. They were both experiencing this meteoric rise to fame.

And I think social media was like relatively new. Like how celebrities interacted on social media was fresh. I think we've learnt a lot since. Anyway, from all reports, mainly their old tweets, Katie and Taylor started out as friends. or at least they were friendly in the industry now they were as we say similar age they became famous at almost exactly the same time so it kind of checks out we've got some examples

Taylor once tweeted, Watching the Waking Up in Vegas video. I love Katy Perry. I think I'm going to hang her poster on my wall now. To which Katy replied, At Taylor Swift 13, you're as sweet as pie. Let's write a song together about the subject we know best for my new record. It'll be brilliant. What is that code, boys? I thought it was love and breakups.

And then I was like, is it John Mayer? But that doesn't fit the timeline. Like, because Katie dated him later. We were talking about waking up in Vegas as the song. So, like... Don't know. Yep, anyway. In 2010, Taylor even invited Katie to perform a surprise duet of Hot and Cold at an LA stop on the Fearless World Tour. This has since come up in my For You page, has it for you? Oh, my God, no.

Let's just say I don't think it was Taylor Swift's best performance in the history of Taylor Swift performances. I can't imagine her voice singing hot and cold. I'll show it to you when we're off, Mike. Okay. Just a few years. And let the record show I couldn't do it either. Oh, no. No, no, no. You could act, though. You could act them both under a table.

Stop. Ow, I think I heard a rip. Oh, God. Just a few years later, as we mentioned in the Taylor Swift series, an article was published in a Tasmanian newspaper and kicked off what would turn into a years-long... Feud. A five-year-long feud, in fact. Okay, so Australian dancer Lockhart Brownlee, what a name, told The Examiner.

Go Tazzy. That he and two other dancers had worked on Katie's California Dreams tour through 2011 and 2012. And they later went on to dance for Taylor when she was touring Red in 2013. Sorry, I'm actually going to take us back one second. Yes.

I said before the subject they know best, maybe it was John Mayer, but the timelines don't align. I think they might. Oh, you're so right. I think it might be John Mayer. It's John Mayer. Anyway, sorry. So let's lay this all out. The Red Tour started in March 2013. and it ended On June 12, 2014. The Prismatic World Tour started on May 7, 2014 and ended on October 18, 2015. So there was a crossover between these two tours. It was about a month, give or take. And it turns out a month.

give or take is a big deal in pop world yeah according to the examiner the dancers decided to leave taylor's red tour early so that they could be on katie's tour bus for the start of the prismatic world tour taylor was not happy about this at all. Look, I get it is just a month, but I guess if you've been doing something for over a year with this group of people.

then mixing it up for the final four weeks would be stressful. It would be a curveball. Well, it depends on whether it was a curveball or something that they could have prepped for. So the story goes that Katie actually warned the dancers years in advance that she was planning to head out on tour again before Taylor's dates wrapped up.

Apparently, she asked Lockhart and his fellow dancers to include a contingency clause in their contracts with Taylor that will allow them to leave at one month's notice. In his interview with The Examiner, Lockhart said,

Obviously, we were with Katie for two and a half years. She's like family to us. So we were like, absolutely. We weren't really dancing in Taylor's tour anyway. So I'd got a little bored and I wanted to do a promo tour. If all of that is true and Lockhart is saying, I wasn't dancing that much anyway. And also, they were foolish enough to... include a one month exit clause I don't know yeah I agree with you so as we all know the dancers did go with Katy Perry

And that prompted Taylor to go into the studio. At this time in her life, she was recording the album 1989 and fueled by this little feud, she penned a song called Bad Blood. Yeah.

We did cover this in our Taylor Swift series, so if you'd like to hear more from Taylor's point of view, you can find How Taylor Swift Rose Fell and Rose Again, Part 2, wherever you get your podcasts. We'll put a link in our show notes. It's our most listened to scandal series ever. It is. For the sake of brevity, what you need to know is that... Bad Blood, released in October 2014.

is almost certainly about Taylor's feelings towards Katy Perry. A September 2014 profile of Taylor in Rolling Stone read, Bad Blood, off her upcoming in 1989, is about a female musical artist she won't name who tried to sabotage her tour by hiring people. So what did Katy Perry think about it all? Well, in September 2014, a month before 1989 was set to debut, Katy Perry tweeted this. Watch out for the Regina George in sheep's clothing.

Then, when Nicki Minaj was snubbed at the 2015 VMAs, Taylor and Nicki had their own feud, which Katie decided to chime in on. It was all very messy. Basically, Nicki was upset that neither Anaconda, neither her collab with Beyonce feeling... Anaconda is just objectively one of the more iconic music videos of the last 20 years. Oh, I can remember it.

I don't think I can remember many other videos. Exactly. Taylor took this personally, tweeting to Nikki, I've done nothing but love and support you. It's unlike you to pit women against each other. Maybe one of the men took your slot. Katie then tweeted what is potentially the most confoundingly worded tweet in human history.

She wrote, finding it ironic to parade the pit women against other women argument about as one unmeasurably capitalises on the takedown of a woman. No one knows what that means. She's just trying to say you're one to talk. Yeah, which would have been a much simpler thing to say. I mean, oh, she could have just said that's the pot calling Kettle Black, hey? Just popping here.

Hi, again, to shepherd you into our final episode in the Katy Perry series. We will catch you on the other side with our 2025 updates. All right, Zazie, as you said.

We are zooming in on the beginning of 2015. At this point in the timeline, Katie's about 31 years old. She's single. She's right in the middle of her prismatic world tour. We're not going to spend a heap of time here, but we do want the listeners to know this was a... Another high point in Katie's career. The prismatic to her was going really well. And in February, she performed the Super Bowl halftime show. Now, this is clearly...

a huge feather in the cap of any professional musician. And her performance, which was on Feb 1, 2015, was no different. It was a career highlight. It was so good. It was so good. It saw her entering the field on a giant tiger as she sung Raw. Then she sung... I Kissed a Girl with Lenny Kravitz, Teenage Dream, California Girls, then Missy Elliott appeared to perform some of her hits, and then Katie closed the show with Firework. She has such a good...

Catalog. Catalog to perform a show like this. 100%. One part of the show did have people online giggling, yourself included. What happened? I actually wasn't even sure this was ever going to make the Scandal series. And when I saw this in Eilish's Notes, I was very excited. This is one of my favourite pop culture moments in history. Now, during the Teenage Dream California Girls section of the show, Katie had two dancers dressed in full body.

shark costumes on the side of her for some reason the shark on her left couldn't seem to get a proper handle on the choreography or the dance moves i don't know how to describe it honestly i would say the shark decided to freestyle yeah the shark Dare I say the shark looked maybe to be inebriated? Yes. A bit sloppy, a bit out of time, a bit confused. It was just fun. It was just funny and fun because it was a large...

Shark costume dancing, not quite to the beat. Now the left shark meme became like a global phenomenon. Immediately, as I'm sure people can imagine with the halftime show, people are live tweeting it and live commenting. And it suddenly became like mainstream news. As per USA Today, the Super Bowl was a thriller, but the highlight of the night may well have been Katie Perry's.

phenomenal halftime show, which featured appearances by Lenny Kravitz, Missy Elliott and a pair of sharks. You're the real MVP left shark. Now, at the time, the dancer in that shark costume didn't actually speak to the media, which is what... They kind of missed the moment. We did find out later.

that it's because the shark didn't want to take attention away from Katy Perry at the time. Yeah, in 2018, though, the left shark's attitude changed. In an article titled The Man Behind Left Shark Explains His Viral Super Bowl Moment, NPR got the full story. from X Dancer and the man behind the left shark, Brian Gore. Sorry, X Dancer. X Dancer, well, it probably killed his career. Take this snippet from the article.

Brian Gore explained that the role of the left shark involved some freedom of expression. So there's a set of choreography, he said. There's also what's called freestyle choreography, or like you get to move around and play your character as a dancer. I'm in a seven foot blue shark costume. There's no cool in that. So what's the other option? Well, I'm going to play a different character. And that character, he claims, was an underdog. An everyday person. Someone imperfect. Now I am all...

For a reach. I am all for a reach. Take us on a journey. Tell us a story. This is quite a steep reach that he was playing the underdog or an imperfect human. It's a fictional story. Yes, this was intentional and it was all sort of performance art. Now, we actually probably have to leave Left Shark there as much as I could spend.

three episodes talking about love shark. We do have to talk about Katie's love life at this time. So we're going to fast forward a year or so to Jan 2016. Katie was around 32 years old and she just wrapped up her prismatic world tour. She was single, but not full. long. Not for long because she had met a 39 year old actor by the name of Orlando Bloom on Jan 10 2016 at an after party for the Golden Globes. Here's what Katie said about the moment she and Orlando met.

I met my boyfriend over In-N-Out. We were at the Golden Globes and we weren't together. So I had my security guard grab 10 In-N-Outs and all of a sudden I see my boyfriend's hand. He wasn't even sitting at our table. He just swoops in and grabs it and I was like, hey, that's my burger.

Yeah, just a month later, romance rumours were flying. People reported that Orlando introduced Katie to his son Flynn, who's born to Orlando and the Australian model Miranda Kerr back in 2011. There are some times where I was like, I would never.

ever ever want to be this famous ever in my entire life there are other times where i'm like if i was ever single just being at the golden globes knowing who was single knowing who was not because it would be really public it's like an immediate dating pool i feel like this kind of story pops up all the time every single

time. I love it. As with lots of things Katy Perry related, how this relationship progressed was a little confusing. Because on the 10th of May, TMZ published this. Orlando Bloom and Selena Gomez all over each other. in Vegas. We are going to read you slabs of TMZ's reporting because we still don't know what to make of this year's on. This actually featured in our Miranda Kerr, Justin and Orlando series, but we didn't dive into it. The scandal omniverse, baby. Yeah. Now.

Per TMZ, Orlando Bloom and Selena Gomez found love in the club for at least one night when things got very physical in Las Vegas and TMZ got pics of the hookup. We went down Friday night at light at the Mandalay Bay. Selena had the after party for her Vegas concert there.

and sources in the club tell us Orlando was a surprise late addition to the party and made a major impression when he got there. It went on. We're told things got very touchy-feely quickly before 23-year-old Selena and 39-year-old Orlando started next week. snuzzling and bracing in a booth. However, we're told Selena absolutely went back to her room alone. So, about Katy Perry. Far as we knew, she and Orlando were still together. They were spotted at a Met Gala after-party last week.

For what it's worth, Katie was at a Renaissance festival Saturday in Cali. Very weird. Let's get these photos up. Yes. I will say it's dark. They're in a club. It's grainy. Do they look like they are making out to me? Neck nuzzling, I think was the term. They do to me. Yeah. If I saw my partner like this in a club with another woman.

Game over, baby. Genuinely, I would have the most serious of questions to ask him. The only thing that's really strange to me, and maybe this is my naivety again, but why you would do this in public if you weren't on a break from Katie or if you weren't...

in some sort of arrangement, especially with someone as famous as Selena Gomez. Because if you were going to cheat, you might as well just do it in your hotel room. Yeah, if you're sober. I do wonder if alcohol's involved, if partying's involved, would you make a silly decision?

Maybe. I think these two definitely hooked up, no doubt about it. The question is, what was the arrangement between Orlando and Katie at this point? I agree. Even though they were photographed together a week before. I mean, a lot can happen in seven days. I don't know. me at this point in her life to be quite a modern woman. Do I think she and Orlando could have had an open arrangement? Absolutely.

Correct. Now, Katie also did what she could to quell conversation about it. She actually tweeted, instead of giving energy and eyeballs to dumb conspiracy, check out how cool this is with a link to Orlando's article in partnership with Eunice. It is like the most obvious move. It's so funny. Bless. Now, perhaps there really is nothing to see here. We need to make room for that because on May 21, 2016, Katie and Orlando went official. So just a couple of weeks.

After this happened in Vegas, they went official on social media. She hard launched Orlando on Instagram with a photo of him beside her. They were sprawled on the front steps of what looked to be a mansion in France. Fast forward to August 4, Zara. Yes, 2016, a colourful and momentous day in pop culture lore. Because this... Is when Katy Perry, Orlando Bloom and Orlando Bloom's member. Mini Orlando. Not so mini though. Yep.

Yeah, he's just his thing. His penis, let's just say it. No, for a paddleboard in Sardinia in Italy. Yeah, he is... It's like he's not wearing a shred of clothing. She's in a bikini. So that's also a little, I just love that detail. They were both naked. maybe, but he's naked and she's not. A pap took these photos and sold them to the New York Daily News, and it was just everything you want in a celebrity news story. First of all...

Orlando and Katie had been kind of private up to this point. We did have that photo on Instagram, but that was kind of it. So it was kind of a joy for this to be one of the first moments we had actually seen them together. Yes, correct. Sorry, I'm actually off the script right now because I'm deep in Google and they're all like hidden images. He is fully starkest. Like obviously all of the photos on the internet and the magazines have blurred out the part in question that should be.

blurred out. But he's just laying it all out. He's really... Happy. Maybe I'm a nude prude. I don't know. He's so relaxed. Yeah, super, super relaxed. So by September 15, Orlando was having fun with the online jokes. He actually changed his Instagram to public. And with that, fans were let into his old post. including his post about paddleboard gate. So it turns out when the paddleboard pictures were going viral, he joked with his inner circle at that time because this is when his profile was.

private by posting a video of him running in slow motion down a pier. The caption, when you were chasing down the car, you stole your swimming trunks. I do really like this. These two, Orlando, Katie, and to be honest, in the extension of Miranda Kerr in this dynamic, all just come across as incredibly... Themselves. Themselves. Incredibly free-spirited. Like a belovedly... Yes.

here, by the way, these pics went so viral. They were a conversation for years. In 2020, Katy Perry was still being asked about them in interviews. And she said in 2020, well, it was Europe. Honestly, we had had a pretty chill time for a week and everywhere we looked, it was like everybody was naked. It was Europe. It was Italy. And I think he wanted to fit in with the locals and it was the end of the trip. Fair enough. Good for him. Good for him. I'm all into that.

back to the timeline good for her yeah well good for good for everyone as we mentioned this period in katie's career was a pretty big high point for her and i don't think it would be a stretch to say at this point katy perry was an icon

But sadly, things were about to change, both for Katy Perry and America at large. I think it's probably worth touching on what was going on in the US at this time. I mean, we're talking about 2016. Of course, the 2016 US election was incredibly... historic for better or worse for the country and the world at large katie was a vocal supporter of hillary clinton's presidential campaign in fact she joined hillary on her campaign trail for over a year as did a number

of other musicians, including Beyonce, Jay-Z, Madonna, Chance the Rapper, Bruce Springsteen and Lady Gaga. Here's a clip of Katie speaking in favour of Hillary at the Democratic National Convention in July 2016. Both of my parents are pastors. and staunch Republicans. I didn't finish high school, and unfortunately, I don't have a formal education. But I do have an open mind, and I have a voice. So I'm asking you to have an open mind.

To use your voice because remember it's not where you come from. It's what you grow into So here's how I'm going to use my voice. I'm going to vote for Hillary Clinton All right, so despite Hillary's plethora of celebrity endorsements. We know what happened on November 8, 2016. Trump's victory was, of course, announced. And that's when Katie tweeted, do not sit still, do not weep.

Move. We are not a nation that will let hate lead us. Yeah, the listeners might be wondering, okay, why so much talk about the 2016 election here? But... It's fair to say that Hillary Clinton's loss set the scene for what would become Katy Perry's next musical era, a period that Katy dubbed her purposeful pop era. This is so 2016 coded. Purposeful pop era. So 2016 coded. And look, I am all for anyone doing their bit.

Maybe the execution here over the next year or so wasn't quite where it needed to be. We'll take you guys through it.

In Jan 2017, Katy Perry tweeted, sometimes it's scary opening up to consciousness makes you realise how asleep you were and how okay you were with it. That tweet gave a strong indication as to what direction Katy was moving in. A month later, She released the single Chained to the Rhythm, which was the lead single of her fourth studio album, Witness.

Change to the rhythm was a little different for Katie, to say the least. Yeah, so it was co-written with Max Martin and the Australian pop star Sia. And the song kind of has this disco pop sound, but the message behind it could be distilled down to, this is from Eilish. wake up sheeple wake up sheeple for sure now just some information to squirrel away for later as well katy perry's longtime collaborator dr luke was nowhere to be seen in the credits of this track we told you guys earlier dr luke

was part of some of Katie's biggest ever songs, her most successful songs. All right, lyrics. Let's talk lyrics from Change to the Rhythm. So comfortable, we're living in a bubble. A bubble. So comfortable we cannot see the trouble. The trouble. Uh-huh. So put your rose-coloured glasses on and party on. Woo. Beautiful.

Beautiful stuff. Purposefully. Yeah, Time reported. While upbeat on the surface, change of the rhythm reflects a dire world of repetition and ignorance, all of us trapped like hamsters on a wheel, feeding on a false reality. When asked about the writing process, Katie said...

I came into the room and it was like a week after the election and Max and Sia was somehow okay and I was definitely not okay. I couldn't write a happy-go-lucky song. I wasn't in that place but I also didn't want to preach to people because I'm not that person either. I want to empower people and... lift people up. Around the time Chain to the Rhythm was released, Katie updated her Twitter bio to read artist, activist, conscious, which did not go unnoticed by the haters and the Katie cats alike.

It got a mixed response. I don't know if artist, activist, conscious. It's just interesting. It's a choice. She then decided to change it again in response to the backlash to read I Know Nothing. It's quite a 180. Chained to the rhythm entered the US Billboard 100 charts at number four and the world charts at number three. It was actually the highest debuting song by a female artist since Adele released Hello in 2015.

And I think it's important to stress that Change to the Rhythm wasn't a flop. However, when you compare it to her other singles, they all bloody went to number one. All of them. I actually can't hear this in my head either. I don't know if I know this song. I actually was wondering if I could pause it and I wish I could play it over the audio right now, but copyright. I actually might just pause to see if I remember the tune to this.

Okay, well we're back from that little detour. We do recognise it. We do. It's not my favourite song of hers. I feel like I owe the listeners a little, um, a beat. If they can't turn it on. Okay. And I always promise not to sing. I'm going to close my eyes and get into it. Go. Dance, dance, dance. It's a disco sound. Yeah. It's not my favourite. Is it yours? No. i actually don't like it oh that's okay anyway while all of this was going on

Katie and Orlando Bloom released a joint statement to People magazine in which they announced the end of their relationship. That statement read, before rumors and falsifications get out of hand, we can confirm that we're taking respectful, loving space at this time.

Yeah, later Katie went on to say she was the one to end the relationship. In an episode of Chelsea Handler's podcast, Dear Chelsea, Katie said, it became boring. And I was like, we're breaking up then. And then I had the worst year of my life.

Foreshadowing. Interesting. We mentioned that the first single from this fourth album was Chained to the Rhythm, which was released in Feb 2017, and that she had obviously said she was all about purposeful pop, which left critics and fans... slightly confused when the album's second single bon appetit or is it bon appetit bon appetit bon apple tea bon apple teeth was released in april

Eilish has written, I could not think of a single song that is less purposeful pop than Bon Appetit. The message behind Change the Rhythm was wake up, but the message behind this song was eat me. Here's the chorus. just to you know give you some context because i'm all that you want boy all that you can have boy got me spread like a buffet sorry mom Bon appétit, baby. Appetite for seduction. Fresh out of the oven. Melt in your mouth kind of loving. Bon appétit, baby. Woo. Woo.

In a review of this song, Spin Magazine said, it's about food and none too coded references to Katy Perry's vagina and it will make you a little uncomfortable. Yeah, when asked about the song's meaning, Katy told a radio host from our very own Kiss FM. that the song was about female empowerment in the face of patriarchal oppression. You can't say that. I can't know. How is this about? I'm obsessed with it. Katie elaborated on this in the same interview.

She said it's not my job to preach at a person or tell them what they should think. It's nice though if I can pose a question or broaden a perspective. I just have to reflect sometimes on what's going on in the world a little bit, but also make some escapism music. It's all word salad. I don't know what that is. It's a whole lot of words. It's a delicious salad. I don't know what that is. Bon appétit, everyone.

Jesus Christ. This song debuted at number 76. Fuck. On the Hot 100. That's a slip. And that is what we call a flop. So I think it's worth asking what was going on at Katy Perry HQ in 2017. And the answer is, we don't know. It looked like Katie and her team couldn't quite commit to purposeful pop.

But they also didn't want to release another Teenage Dream. I wonder if they were like, purposeful pop, purposeful pop. He's changed the rhythm. And they were like, oh, no, that was a flop. Let's go back to OG Katie. And then they did that. And everyone's like, but you told us you were doing purposeful pop. Like, what's going on? I think she was confused about the direction. And she wanted to go in and it...

It kind of bled down from the top, if you ask me. Not that I know, but that's my theory. Before we go too deep on the rest of this album, Witness, we have to take a brief pause. We are returning to Katie's feud with Miss Taylor Alison Swift. But before we get there...

A word from today's sponsor. All right, Mish. So you might remember from part two that Katie and Taylor struck up a rivalry after Katie nabbed some dancers from Taylor's Red Tour back in 2014. The dancers had worked with Katie first and even had a clause in their contracts that allowed... them to leave the tour early should Katie decide to hit the road again. Now, this simple HR problem became a low-blind sensation in no small part because of Bad Blood, Taylor's song.

One of my least favourite Taylor Swift songs, I think. It's not good. No. In the lead-up to Witness, the press were eager to probe Katie on the Taylor drama. Katie gave a handful of comments to interviewers throughout 2017, including this one from Enemy. side of the story and there are three sides of every story one two and the truth i mean i'm not buddha i mean i'm not buddha

No. No, things irritate me. I wish that I could turn the other cheek every single time, but I'm also not a pushover, you know, especially when someone tries to assassinate my character with little girls. That's so messed up. Katie also appeared on James Corden's Carpool Karaoke. in which she directly addressed the conflict. Katie said she started it and it's time for her to finish it. Yes, so...

Speaking of this feud, the third single that Katie released in the lead up to Witness, the album, was a song called Swish Swish featuring Nicki Minaj. Importantly, yeah. Yeah, exactly right. Now, is it Katy Perry's best work? Perhaps not. But what you need to know is that this track was Katy's answer to Bad Blood. And don't forget, Nicki Minaj was also somehow involved in this tweet war early as well. Yeah. The lyrics to Swish Swish. Read.

your game is tired you should retire you're about as cute as an alt coupon expired And Karma's not a liar. She keeps receipts. It's not Hemingway. It's not. It's just also I would say two references in one verse. to a little small bit of paper both in a coupon and a receipt. Feels like too many references to small bits of barcode. I'm just going to be honest. Now. I reckon.

That's one of the worst pop lyrics of all time. You're about as cute as an old coupon expired. Again, we also have to remind the audience this was in the purposeful pop era. We started with Change the Rhythm. we have bon appetit and then we had swish swish you're about as cute as an old coupon expired and this was purposeful pop purposeful this was activist conscious artist

Now, the release of Witness was drawing ever closer, but, you know, things were getting a little cringeworthy and the public was starting to point that out. Which brings me to June. On June 8 to June 12, 2017, Katy Perry lived in a house slash studio filled to the brim with 41 cameras and live streamed to the internet for 96 hours straight.

This social experiment was titled Witness Worldwide. It generated over 49 million views across 190 countries, and it was obviously the PR push for Witness. It's kind of smart. It's a lot. It's smart, but it's a huge risk. of course it's like giving big brother it's which feels kind of old it's like my nightmare oh my god honestly what would you prefer this

Or for all of your iMessages to be leaked? I would do this instead. Because you could keep it together for four days. If all my iMessages were leaked, there goes my career. 96 hours, less of a chance of my career going. Yeah, 96 hours is a lot of time to fill, just so we're all clear. So Katie and her team organised a lot of activities, gatherings, special guests and interviews to take place within the house over the weekend. She cooked with Gordon Ramsay, did yoga.

with Jesse Tyler Ferguson, sang with Pentatonix and had her makeup done by Patrick Starr amongst about a billion other things because there was 96 hours. The whole event wrapped up on June 12 with a live Katy Perry concert. Yeah, we can't touch on every single thing. that Katie did during this because we don't have 96 hours to talk to you guys about it. We will recap the important stuff.

Most of which I would say would be Katie's therapy session with Dr. Siri Satnam Singh, who had a show with SBS Viceland called The Therapist. Just to be clear, because the usage of the word doctor can be confusing and it can mean different things at times. According to my research, Dr. Singh is a marriage therapist with a PhD from a private college called Pacifica Graduate Institute. That institute does not hold...

the standard accreditation to be known as a psychiatrist or a psychologist, which is all to say that Dr. Singh is not a conventional medical doctor. Yeah. The session was intense and we learnt not only about Katy Perry but also Katherine Hudson too, which was, you know, the person who she was before she became Katy Perry. In this session, Katy revealed that the reason she cut her hair into a pixie cut and dyed it blonde was because she was trying to reconcile her public.

and private images. She said, I so badly want to be Katherine Hudson that I didn't want to look like Katy Perry anymore. During this session, she also cheerfully recalled her past suicidal ideation and alcohol use saying, I feel ashamed that I would have those thoughts, feel that low.

that depressed. As per People magazine, at the end of Perry's session, Dr. Singh offered her a wooden bowl filled with a fresh stack of angel cards. Now, the one that she pulled out appeared to give Perry exactly what she was looking for, which was freedom.

Many news outlets covered that session at the time, with most of them holding positive viewpoints on it as a whole. The New Yorker, however, did take a slightly more skeptical view. Their piece reads, Perry's confessions that she has abused alcohol, that she has had thoughts of suicide, that she recently cut all her hair off because she didn't want to look like Katy Perry anymore, felt premeditated. There is an obvious benefit to having conversations like this in public. Perhaps...

that might inspire a troubled fan to make comparable confessions to a mental health professional. But when they're plainly staged in service of an album launch, it feels less like an act of altruism or epiphany than cynical calculation.

Yeah, I felt like this was a bit rough. I agree with it. I think this idea that, oh, it all felt premeditated, like obviously somebody telling this story in the way that they want to tell it will be premeditated, like obviously. I think there's a conversation here about like what kind of... professionals were platforming but i don't know i think it's like if somebody wants to tell you their story and use it as an album launch why are we owed that story elsewhere

Yeah. That's the only thing I think. I guess for me, there's a layer of eye roll for me, not because her story is unimportant. I think it is. And like, it's very impressive that she would speak about her troubles. I think it's someone trying to tell the world you're getting an unfiltered accent. to my life for four days. This is unfiltered. This is me authentically who I am. When in reality, I do think this could have been manufactured.

to an nth degree to the point where I think the angel card she even picked up at the end saying freedom I think even that was manufactured but for sure and then but then it's more acting right like if you're sitting down for a profile with a magazine I don't think that's the same level of acting

as i do this it's like an extra layer of manufacturing something yeah i totally agree with that but i think my point is like i don't know if it matters like people know what they're signing up for this is a celebrity who's trying to promote her album launch she can do whatever she wants i think it is

I think it's just... a bit harsh fair i don't feel strongly i can see what the new yorker piece is getting yeah fair now the next thing we have to discuss is katie's politically motivated dinner party now if there's anything i'm probably going to have more issue with i think it's this The final night in the Witness World White House, Katie invited over several dinner party guests who apparently had opposing political views to each other.

Guests for this dinner party included the comedian Margaret Cho, staunch Republican Caitlyn Jenner, the activist Van Jones, liberal political commentator Sally Cohn, Republican strategist Anna Navarro, actor Amanda Seals and DJ Young Skeeter. And then there was also my favourite detail, a young contest winner named Laura who won.

A seat at this dinner table. That's my worst nightmare. If someone told me that was my prize, I'd be like, no. I think that's the best prize in the whole world. This is fucking so rogue. As you can imagine, the dinner party got pretty heated, spurred in no small part by Caitlyn Jenner saying confidence.

that she got more trouble for coming out as a Republican than she did for being trans. As per news.com.au, sensing she didn't have the most receptive audience, Jenna retreated. I don't want to talk anymore. I think it's getting hostile, she said. From there, Amanda... Seals delivered a blistering speech directly to Jenna, offering her perspective as an African-American.

I've had nothing of similarity to your experience in this country. Literally nothing. It's an insult to me that you are not listening to what I'm saying, she told her. Now, however you guys feel about the validity of the Witness Worldwide project, it was certainly daring and intriguing.

and it was a sight of Katie the public just hadn't seen before. Yes, exactly. And I think what's interesting here is Witness Worldwide must have done something to promote the record. I mean... I keep saying for better or worse, but this sort of feels like the theme of Katie at the moment, for better or worse, because Witness debuted at number one on the Billboard 200, becoming Katie's third number one album overall. I am a little surprised that Winters debuted at number one because I think...

I can't hear many of the songs we've been talking about. I have to go to Spotify to play them. I wonder if this came at a time where there wasn't a heap of other competition. I don't really know. We do know. that Taylor Swift was perhaps trying to compete with Katie at this time because the very same day that Witness dropped the album on June 9, 2017, Taylor Swift decided to make her entire back catalogue available on Spotify that very same day. So her entire...

via discography, her five albums at this point in her career, had not been available to stream on Spotify for some time. She decided to reverse that on the same day as Katie launched her album. Shady? I don't know if I'd call it shady. Competitive, yeah. ruthless yeah and i think taylor still does this today yeah this kind of stuff yes

That's what you have to do, dare I say, to be number one. I think it's cunning. It is cunning. And I think you have to be cunning to be the best pop or the top pop star in the world. It's a very competitive landscape. Regardless of that, Witness was out and it was a number one album. However, the reviews...

were decidedly mixed. Some reviewers thought the Witnesses' tracks weren't so bad. Pretty much everyone agreed though that the rollout and promotion for the album had been a complete and unmitigated disaster, Mish. Take this from USA Today. The biggest shame of all, Katy Perry didn't have to

to do any of this. Despite everything its lead singles and marketing campaign led listeners to expect, Witness is neither Perry's political manifesto nor an album of embarrassing hip-hop appropriation. The album Perry actually released is sonically coherent and entirely uncontroversial, its decent songwriting mostly focused on her wounded heart. Arguably, it's one of her most personal records to date, and yet the marketing focused on everything but.

And finally, to close our pretty lengthy chapter on Witness, take this frighteningly accurate wrap-up from The Ringer. Katy Perry lost hold of her own narrative the second she promised something she couldn't quite deliver. Purposeful pop. Witness was never going to...

top the career peak of teenage dream what other than bad by markel jackson possibly could but it wouldn't have become such a punchline had it not purported so loudly to mean something even in such a fraught cultural moment not every single utterance by a celebrity needs to be a political statement. Sometimes a song is just a song. So interesting to look back on this time in history and see how many people did exactly that.

Let's let the dust settle on the Witness era and touch on some good news in Katy Perry's world. Because in September 2018, Katy and Orlando were back on and in a big way. They walked the red carpet in Monaco together for a charity event.

officially marking their comeback as a couple. Yes, and they actually got engaged just a couple of months later. This feels like a real reconciliation period for Katy Perry because soon enough she would make up with Taylor Swift for good. So you're probably wondering...

All want to be reminded of how this actually ended. Well, after a number of quotes to the media in which Katie expressed a desire to put the conflict to rest, Katie finally extended an olive branch to Taylor. And when we say olive branch, we mean a literal olive branch. A literal olive branch, exactly right.

In May, Katie sent the olive branch wreath to Taylor ahead of her first show of the Reputation Tour. Taylor then took a pic of the wreath and uploaded it to her Instagram story with the caption, Thank you, Katie. Dare I say if I was Katy Perry sending the olive branch I would want like a love heart emoji or like

a little bit more warmth than just thank you, Katie. The rape was accompanied by a handwritten note which opened with, hey old friend, I've been doing some reflecting on past miscommunications and hurt feelings between us. I really want to clear the air. This ended the conflict and, you know. Everyone was happy. Everyone was stoked. A year later, a very familiar face made a cameo in Taylor Swift's music video for You Need to Calm Down. Yes. It was Katy Perry dressed as a burger.

And Tyler was dressed with french fries.

Yes. Now, let's recap where we are. We're actually in 2019 now. By this time, Katie's Witness World tour was done and dusted for a few months. She was with Orlando. She was about 35 years old at this point in the timeline. Yeah, in May 2019, she released... to stand alone single called Never Really Over. Now...

Eilish our in-house pop star says this is arguably one of the best pop songs of all time at least on par with teenage dream you can cut this if you want but I do wholeheartedly believe this to be true to which Chloe who also is a pop culture journalist who helps us with these, said...

Same. It is a great song. I can hear it in my head. It's the first song we've mentioned that bang, straight in my head, playing on repeat. Yeah, first song we've mentioned today. It's not as good as Teenage Dream though. That's where I will pick a bone. With Gil and Chloe. Yes. At the time, Pitchfork wrote that Never Really Over felt like a promising way forward. All in all, Never Really Over is her best single since 2013's Walking On Air.

So, after a rough, rough run with Witness, Katie had a critical hit on her hands. But was it a commercial hit? Only kind of. I think this was a sleeper hit. It did peak at number 15 on the Billboard Hot 100.

But dare I say, if you polled the public, this would be up high in their ranking. Yeah, I agree with the sleeper hit thing. In March 2020, Katie released a music video for her new song, Never Worn White, in which she revealed she was pregnant. Now, this announcement... was also quickly followed by another that her new album, Smile, would be released in August 2020.

During the lead up to Smile, Katie shared more about her mindset following Witness. Here's what she told Vogue India in 2020. I had to really go on a mental health journey. On August 27, 2020, just one day before Smile dropped, Katie and Orlando announced the birth of their daughter named Daisy Dove. They made this announcement via UNICEF. for which they are both ambassadors. Zara, do you remember this? On the show in September 2020 on Shameless Thursday's episodes.

I may or may not pronounce the baby's name Daisy Dove. And ever since, I can't get that out of my brain. Should we play a snippet of that? Just for a little flashback. Katy Perry and Orlando Bloom gave birth to a little girl. How exciting. The name Daisy Dove Bloom. Dove. Oh, my God. Dove. Annabelle, you need to cut that. Daisy Dove. Annabelle. Okay, fine. We're clearly not able to cut it. Daisy Dove Bloom. It's an early morning record.

my god you need more coffee mate daisy dove bloom it's very it's very jamie oliver-esque if you guys aren't familiar jamie oliver's babies are all called things like daisy dove or daisy dove you know what it is It's not being confirmed that it's definitely Dove. So technically it could be Dove.

We sound like babies. We do. We sound young. Four years ago. Now, in that statement. Stupid babies. Yeah. In that statement where they announced the birth of Daisy Dove, the couple announced a new charity paid by UNICEF where the proceeds would go towards struggling new parents. and their children. Despite everything, they do a lot of charity. Like, they do work with UNICEF really closely. We wanted to revisit Old Mate Orlando for a second here.

Because the following year he made some headlines for having a spectacularly wacky morning routine. This was in the Sunday Times. Do you remember this? Oh, I remember this. It was one of those day in the life pieces where a celebrity takes readers through their...

typical day to night vibe and boy is this a routine can i please read you out sections of course okay so orlando said in this piece i'm a capricorn you see so i crave routine of course i like to earn my breakfast so i'll just have some green powders that I mix with brain octane oil, a collagen powder for my hair and nails, and some protein. It's all quite LA really. Then I go for a hike while I listen to some Nirvana or Stone Temple pilots. By 9am it's breakfast, which is usually porridge

a little hazelnut milk, cinnamon, vanilla paste, hazelnuts, goji berries, and a vegan protein powder, and a cup of PG tips. Tea. I'm 90% plant-based, so I'll only eat a really good piece of red meat maybe once a month. I sometimes look at a cow and think that's the most beautiful thing ever. He went on. My son spends half his time with me and half with my ex-wife. If he's with us, I get him breakfast before school. Then I'll have a shower and get dressed. I like to make an effort.

No tracksuit bottoms. I have a deal with Amazon where I work on projects exclusively for them. I spend a lot of my time dreaming about roles for myself and others, for minorities and women. I'm trying to be a voice for everybody.

That last bit was I'm trying to be a voice for everybody. Now, Twitter had a field date where they think how much this just took a turn towards the political, like no tracksuit bottoms, goji berries, brain octane oil, by the way, really committed to women and minorities.

Like I'm a voice for the people. He went on, I had this remarkable opening chapter to my career for which I was only semi-present. Without my Buddhist practice, I could have really easily come off the rails. I've been changing the narrative in my head and feel that I can be a driver of my train. I can set it alight but I can get the fire crew and put it out. Nice. I mean it's beautiful.

It's amusing, but harmless. Yeah, it actually is. It's like whatever fills his cup. That's nice. Yeah. Brain octane oil aside, we can now fast forward to almost where we are at.

In real life, we're fast forwarding to 2024, the year of Katy Perry's potential comeback. It is interesting that we've spoken so much about Katy Perry's comeback. When... She had actually been doing consistent things up until about 2020, 2021. Like it's not like she's been out of the game for...

15 years. But anyway, it is at this point we need to talk about music producer Dr. Luke. So Katie and Dr. Luke have been working together since one of the boys in 2008. They are longtime collaborators. Dr. Luke is a part of some of, if not all, Katy Perry's... most successful songs like i kissed a girl california girls teenage dream et last friday night part of me wide awake raw and unconditionally are just some of the songs that they've written and produced together wow

It's a huge discography. In October 2014, fellow pop star Kesha, as we know, sued Dr Luke for emotional abuse and sexual assault. In filing the lawsuit, Kesha was looking to be freed from her contract with Dr Luke.

the time Kesha's lawyer gave the following statement to Billboard. The facts presented in our lawsuit paint a picture of a man who is controlling and willing to commit horrible acts of abuse in an attempt to intimidate an impressionable talented young female artist into submission for his personal gain.

Kesha is focused on moving her life and her career beyond this terrible time. Dr. Luke immediately filed a countersuit for defamation. Here's what his lawyers said to Billboard. Kesha is engaged in a campaign of publishing outrageous and untrue statements about Dr. Luke.

in an attempt to extort him into releasing Kesha from her exclusive recording agreement with him. In 2016, a judge in New York dismissed Kesha's lawsuit against Dr. Luke, stating her claims of abuse and harassment, and I quote, didn't meet the legal standards for such crimes. The judge also noted that many of Kesha's claims of abuse fell outside the statute of limitations. Dr. Luke's defamation lawsuit dragged out for years. It ended finally in June 2023 with

both Dr Luke and Keshe are reaching an undisclosed settlement out of court. Yeah, so that's the general context. Of course, there is so much more that happened there because it went on for nearly 10 years. But that's the context you need to know for how this relates to Katy Perry.

At one point during this really lengthy legal battle, Kesha claimed that Dr Luke had also raped Katy Perry. Both Katy and Dr Luke have denied this claim. Take this quote from an unsealed deposition Katy made around this time.

Kesha would drag me into it in this way. I feel annoyed at both Luke and Kesha. Luke knows I'm a tiebreaker because when I say I wasn't raped because I was not, that means that someone's lying and I want to stay out of it because I know them both and I empathize with both of them and obviously it's a horrible situation.

for both of them. And the only two people that know what really went on are those two people. But Luke was using me as a pawn because it's a good play. Wow. In a series of text messages between Kesha and Lady Gaga that were released alongside a myriad of other court documents.

The two pop stars, as in Kesha and Lady Gaga, have an interesting conversation about Katy Perry. We're going to read you an excerpt from People. In newly released court documents pertaining to Kesha and Lady Gaga's text messages, the two... singers both called Katy Perry mean. Was crying a lot today and needed my mum. Kesha texted Gaga in the unsealed messages dated from Feb 26, 2016. I'm really upset with Katy Perry. Kesha went on to write that Perry

I quote, could bring this whole thing to a head. She was raped by the same man, but was probably really afraid to lose everything. After Lady Gaga replied that Katy Perry was not as strong as you yet, Kesha replied, I need to find sympathy for her. She's so mean, it's hard. Gaga added, I know she's mean, before saying she was not close with her. Gaga said, she makes me angry about shit but I just have to try to have empathy for her.

Yeah, it's worth noting that Lady Gaga and Katy Perry publicly reconciled after this text exchange was released, but Katy Perry and Kesha did not and have not to this day. Now for the last little bit of context, here's another quote from Katy's unsealed deposition.

Perry went on to share that when Kesha's lawsuit was filed, she received numerous angry Twitter messages from users who believed that by not speaking out against Dr. Luke, she was supporting rape. People were generally very angry at me for not saying anything. Asked why she made the decision not to work with Luke on her...

most recent album witness perry said she didn't want to seem like she was picking a side so katie had not worked with dr luke since 2013's prism until she decided to work with him for her comeback single woman's world in 2024 yeah look it's a choice particularly given public sentiment and you know the accusations against this man and also how many other people there are that she could work with like she worked with zed on never really over and 365 like

There are other people that she could have worked with, but maybe this speaks to how desperately she wants to recreate the same pinnacle. Yeah, it's really interesting. I saw a lot of commentary on socials speculating that she was in an exclusive contract with Dr. Luke and had to work with him. I'd love to know where that came from because to our point earlier, she hadn't worked with him in 11 years. Yes. So it's like I don't really see how that theory holds up, but I wanted to put that.

in this episode because i know a lot of the listeners would have seen that floating around and also thought the same thing finally if the song is called woman's world yes it makes it even it's already not good it's already bad It is such terrible, terrible optics to release a song supposedly about women's empowerment in collaboration with a man accused of the things Dr. Luke has been accused of. Yep.

So Katie will be releasing her first album since 2020 on September 20, 2024. It's called 143. I literally said, from what we can tell, it'll be a dance pop record. At this point, Mish, we've reached the end of our series on Katy Perry as she begins a new album cycle. It also seems like she still has a lot to say. She's turning 40 this year. And in a recent interview with Zane Lowe for Apple Music, she had this to say about what she's learned.

about being a woman since growing older and giving birth to Daisy. I think giving birth unlocked a feminine divine inside of me that is just like transcendental. I feel like maybe I was operating a little bit more on the defense before I had that wholeness and that love. Woman's world really came from that.

I think that most people, when they think of me, they think of Raw, they think of Firework. Mostly they think of these empowering songs, songs for the message, songs that are like captions on T-shirts and stuff like that. Things that help people get through. And I love that. I love hearing the stories and I really want to write these.

songs from a place where I really need to get through something so I want to continue with that a fruit salad and everything all right everyone we made it It's present day us. When we last left you with the Scandal series, we'd been speculating on what Katy Perry's new album might sound like. The album has been out for a little while now and did we listen to it? I actually didn't. I couldn't tell you a single thing about it other than...

What Woman's World Sounds Like, the single. Yeah, and that also her performance at the AFL Grand Final of the new songs was still actually quite good. Oh, it slapped. We were there. That was so good. That was so good. Good. It is interesting to note, though, that as of recording, none of the top 10 most listened to songs on Katy Perry's Spotify profile are from her most recent album. So I think we could pretty wholeheartedly say the album was a flop.

Yeah, that said, she's still the 25th most listened to artist in the world. So I imagine she's probably not entirely bothered. Unfortunately for Katie, as you said, it was not just like a commercial flop, but also a bit of a critical one too. It debuted at a respectable number six at the Billboard Hot 100 but fell around 70 spots in that same chart by the following week. The critics did not hold back.

I mean, we had this from Slate. It's time to call it Katy Perry is not coming back. We had this from The Independent. Katy Perry's comeback attempt 143 is painfully dated and out of touch. Katy Perry's 143 is a failed attempt to rekindle her glory. from Rolling Stone. Katy Perry's new album rollout is a masterclass in what not to do from the ABC. Katy Perry's comeback album 143 feels about 143 years old from the Washington Post. Yikes. That's as emphatic as emphatic can be. Yeah.

Katie did, though, still decide to push ahead with her Lifetime's world tour in support of the album. That tour began earlier this year. There's been a lot of sensationalised reporting from the likes of the Daily Mail that suggests that this tour is also a flop, but... Not really the case. I mean, if we look simply at the facts, certainly the facts of the Australian leg of the Lifetimes World Tour, it completely sold out. So it can't be that bad. Yeah, 100%.

Now, also looking at the remaining dates in the US, tickets are mostly sold. It's not like they're kind of reducing venues or anything like that. It's not giving J-Lo's tour. Remember how J-Lo had to cancel those? Totally. It is also coming up on my feed. People there. There is some level of presence on social media. As we record this, Katie is still on tour as well, but we also have to touch on another quote unquote tour that she took this year, and that would be astronaut Katie going to space.

How many mentions has it? A hundred. It has to be close to a hundred. Now, on April 15, 2025, Katy Perry went on an 11-minute trip to space facilitated by Jeff Bezos and his space technology company, Blue Origin. The flight traveled around 60 miles above Earth. It placed it just above the atmosphere and into space. Other passengers included Lauren Sanchez, his now wife.

who is also a journalist and a helicopter pilot. Gayle King, Oprah's BFF, was there. We also had the scientist and civil rights activist Amanda Nguyen. And then finally, aerospace engineer Aisha Bowe and the film producer Kerri-Ann Flynn. It was a real mixed bag. Now...

I don't know what else to say about this trip. Perhaps we probably need to talk about the fact she announced her set list in space on a butterfly that no one could zoom in on. We also had an interview that she had when she landed on the ground and she said,

said she was just super connected to love. In that same interview, the reporter said, well, you're an astronaut now. And instead of sort of waving it away and saying, gosh, no, I couldn't possibly be considered an astronaut, she said, thank you.

She did. Now, the last thing we need to update you all on is, of course, Katie splitting from her longtime partner and fiance, Orlando Bloom. He's also the father to their five-year-old daughter, Daisy. As we covered in our series, Katie and Orlando started dating around 2016, on and off again, up and down, rollercoaster, as is the case with all things Katy Perry. They got engaged in Feb 2019. Daisy was born in August 2020, Zaz.

Yeah, so what happened was kind of in June 2025, so a few months ago, rumours started circulating about the status of their relationship. On June 10, an anonymous source told Us Weekly that Katie and Orlando were spending more and more time apart and that it was an unspoken thing that they... were having issues for a while now we had like a few more of these stories start to trickle out in a vein that I think we're seeing a lot more when it comes to celebrity divorces which are these

fed divorces bread crumbed yeah not that this was even a divorce I don't think these two ever got married right but it was like a bread crumb so that by the time they eventually came out on July 4 and announced their separation everyone had a bit of a shrug of the shoulders they said at the time

Due to the abundance of recent interest in conversations surrounding Katy Perry and Orlando Bloom's relationship, reps have confirmed that Orlando and Katy have been shifting their relationship over the past many months to focus on co-parenting. They will continue to be seen together as a family. as their shared priority is and always will be, raising their daughter with love, stability and mutual respect. The very, very last thing we need to touch upon is Katie's blip.

with Justin Trudeau, the former Prime Minister of Canada. So she was officially split from Orlando. And then by July 25, TMZ obtained photos of her with the former Prime Minister out together on a walk and then dining together at a restaurant in Montreal.

They had drinks at a bar nearby. Yes, and then he went to the concert with his daughter. As we spoke about on Shameless, we thought they were a bit serious because of course you're bringing your daughter to the concert. Perhaps it means this has been going on for a little while. It would appear a week later. It had cooled off. Yeah. So what we have now is that Justin wasn't thrilled about pictures getting out of them together.

I mean, I said this on the show at the time. You can't go out with Katy Perry publicly in Canada where you were former prime minister and not expect that to catch on. That said, again, I wonder if this was just good for both of them. A good kind of branding piece. I hadn't thought about Justin Trudeau in...

probably a year. It's slightly chic from Katy Perry to date a former prime minister. And I thought it was slightly edgy for Justin Trudeau. So you have to wonder if this was kind of exactly what they wanted. And now he's come out and said, actually, the attention wasn't what I wanted. Imagine if Justin Trudeau was like, if this was PR for an upcoming memoir or something. It could be. I don't think it is, but I hear you. It could be. There's like a 5% little glimmer in my brain going.

But imagine. And I've got to tell you, I mean, we're finishing it on that because that's the most recent story we have about Katie at the time we're recording. But I certainly wasn't expecting when we recorded these episodes in 2024 to finish a Katy Perry story on Justin Trudeau. No. I wouldn't have predicted that. Not even the Oracle. Not even the Oracle. She always keeps us guessing. And perhaps that's why Katy Perry is so interesting.

Even today, when she's not releasing music that I love, I will always find this woman fascinating. Fascinating. 100%. That is all we've got time for. A big thank you, as always, to Eilish Gilligan, your researchers and producers. Thanks, Gil. You're sitting next to me. You're going to pretend you're not going to. That's okay. Love you, Bill. We will be back in here on Thursday, guys. Bye. Bye. This podcast was recorded on Wurundjeri land. Always was, always will be Aboriginal land.

Hey, it's Ruby here. I'm popping up to tell you about my conversation with Sam Wood on Inherited. He is the founder of his online fitness business, 28 by Sam Wood, and he became a household name in 2015 on The Bachelor Australia when he met his now wife. I'm about to play you a quick snippet from our conversation. Here, Sam speaks about how losing his mum to cancer has shaped his approach to modern fatherhood. Just be present. Don't wake up one day and go, you've missed it.

you know like you hear all these sayings you get you know 18 summers with your kids don't waste one of them all this kind of stuff and it's all so so true and i think that tragedy has had some silver linings that's for sure You can listen to the interview in full. Just search Inherited on your favorite podcast app and we're on Instagram and TikTok at Inherited the Pod. We'll be back with another episode next Tuesday. I'll see you then.