Katy Perry’s Parents Never Acknowledged Her Success, Wished She Would Become a Christian Music Singer
Katy Perry has sold approximately 48 million album units and 135 million singles worldwide but her parents never acknowledged her success. The Fireworks hitmaker had a strict upbringing, Perry grew up in an evangelical household since her parents Keith and Mary Hudson were religious preachers. Perry was known as Katheryn Hudson but she adopted her mother’s maiden name as stage name. In an interview with the Guardian, the Harleys in Hawaii singer revealed that she had hated her original name due to her traumatic childhood - “A lot of people are living in fear from something that happened in their childhood, or some form of PTSD they picked up along the way, and I created this wonderful character called Katy Perry that I very much am, and can step into all the time, but I created that character out of protection,” she says. “I was scared that if you saw me, Katheryn Hudson, the girl wearing the Bioré strip on my nose, you’d be like, ‘that’s not glamorous’. It was me going, ‘OK, I’ve been upset my whole childhood so I’m going to show the world I am something, that I am going to do something, and that I am enough’. I didn’t want to be Katheryn Hudson. I hated that, it was too scary for me, so I decided to be someone else.”
if you wanna know why any human is they way they are, look at their parents participation or sadly, lack thereof. We are all just patterns of them but at a certain conscious age we have to ask ourselves will I be repeating this pattern or will I be the loop breaker?
— KATY PERRY (@katyperry) October 30, 2022
In an interview with Vanity Fair in 2011, Perry admitted that she was barred from "listening to pop music, or reading Harry Potter books or watching The Smurfs as a child". Her parents were disappointed when the Dark Horse found her journey as a music artist and moved away from singing Gospel songs. When Perry released I Kissed A Girl track her parents were furious with the bisexual lyrics. Mary Hudson that time shared her disdain - “I hate the song. It promotes homosexuality and its message is shameful and disgusting.” Her mother even criticized Perry's outfits calling them “too revealing” and lashed out at her saying that her career was a “period of rebellion.” The California Gurls singer retaliated with an angry tweet saying - “Concerning the gossip, I want to be clear that No One speaks for me. Not a blog, magazine, ‘close sources’ or my family”.
In an interview with Today during her witness livestream in 2017, Perry revealed that she loves her parents but they don't agree on a lot of things - “My parents are great and I love them so much,” the Roar singer told Natalie Morales. “I cry sometimes thinking about how much I love them.” Yet, Perry admitted, “They don’t agree with some of the things I do and they do wish that I could do other things.” “And I just have to say, ‘You are your person, I am my person, and my intentions are pure,’ ” she explained to Morales while sharing how she reacts to her parent's views most of the time. Their relationship continues to remain strained since her parents had always wished she would end up becoming a Christian music singer.
References:
https://www.thethings.com/do-katy-perry-parents-approve-of-her-career/
https://www.theguardian.com/music/2017/jun/11/katy-perry-interview-witness-album-glastonbury
https://www.telltalesonline.com/36754/katy-perry-facts/
https://people.com/music/katy-perry-parents-dont-agree-with-music/
