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Katy Perry has been getting an onslaught of negative press lately. She’s received bad reviews for her latest album 143, backlash for her 10-minute trip to the stars in an Amazon bus, and questionable choreography in her Lifetimes Tour. The hits keep coming for Katy, and not of the chart-topping variety. So some of Katy’s diehard fans, the so-called “Katy Cats,” banded together to rent a billboard in NYC’s Times Square with a congratulatory message for their gurl on the launch of her tour. Of course, Katy was made aware of the sweet, grand gesture, and responded in kind this week by thanking her fans in a tome of an Instagram comment to one of their posts:
“When the ‘online’ world tries to make me a human Piñata, I take it with grace and send them love, cause I know so many people are hurting in so many ways and the internet is very much so a dumping ground for unhinged and unhealed,” the musician wrote in a comment on Tuesday, April 29, underneath a post about a tribute fan sites made for her in New York City’s Times Square.
In the video, a huge billboard in Times Square could be seen projecting a message congratulating Perry on the opening week of her tour. “We are so proud of you and your magical journey. And we love you to the moon and back!” the message included, before being signed off, “From your worldwide cats,” in reference to the name given to Perry’s fanbase, Katy Cats.
Perry began her comment by thanking her fan sites for their support, writing, “I’m so grateful for you guys. We’re in this beautiful and wild journey together. I can continue to remain true to myself, heart open and honest especially because of our bond. I love you guys and have grown up together with you and am so excited to see you all over the world this year!”
“Please know I am ok, I have done a lot work around knowing who I am, what is real and what is important to me,” she continued. “My therapist said something years ago that has been a game changer, ‘no one can make you believe something about yourself that you don’t already believe about yourself’ and if I ever do have any feelings about it then it’s an opportunity to investigate the feeling underneath it.”
Addressing her fans again, Perry went on, “What’s real is seeing your faces every night, singing in unison, reading your notes, feeling your warmth. I find people to lock eyes and sing with and I know we are healing each other in a small way when I get to do that.”
The mom of one added that she is “not perfect” and has “omitted that word from my vocabulary.”
“I’m on a human journey playing the game of life with an audience of many and sometimes I fall but… I get back up and go on and continue to play the game and somehow through my battered and bruised adventure I keep looking to the light and in that light a new level UNLOCKS ♥️,” she concluded.
“I take it with grace and send them love, cause I know so many people are hurting in so many ways and the internet is very much so a dumping ground for unhinged and unhealed.” Ah yes, nothing says love like talking down to someone and calling them unhinged and unhealed. And there’s something about “people are hurting” that’s pinging for me. I know! It’s taking me back to “Kim, there’s people that are dying.” Like Katy’s trying to quash criticism directed at her… because people are hurting and pay attention to them. Look, I don’t particularly want to be hating on Katy Perry endlessly. But she did knowingly elect to associate with Dr. Luke and Jeff Bezos, and those choices open her up to a certain amount of derision, as far as I’m concerned. So to me, the million dollar question out of this story is about the “fans” renting a huge ass Times Square billboard. Or I guess I should call it the $5,000 question, because that’s the minimum cost of a large billboard in that location! And a few fan sites have that kind of disposable income — in this economy?!
I will say on the Blue Origin trip to space that I do think *some* not all of the criticism is wrongly targeted at Katy personally. The whole thing was ridiculous, but it is not the “passengers” selected who are responsible for that, its Lauren Sanchez and Jeff Bezos. I think it’s unrealistic to expect Katy Perry to say “oh, I’m not worthy of this, choose someone else”. She shouldn’t have been selected, yes, but that’s not on her. I also think that this criticism is not directed at Gayle, even though it should be if applied to Katy. Now, her behavior on the flight? Promoting her album? Yeah, that is grounds for criticism, though again it’s not like she photobombed the 11 minute broadcast, this was all planned and approved in advance by other people who were actually in charge of this nonsense.
I agree, the hate fest started when she collaborated with that man on a women-empowering song. Kate’s audience isn’t rightwing, so she couldn’t escape it by ignoring the noise. Once you got that target on you, the internet won’t forget and humble you with memes, videos. His victim isn’t some faceless woman. Kesha is also making it clear how disgusted she is, which gives people more reason to go after her.
I’m way more critical of Gayle because you would think she should know better? Going into space for ten minute screams Katy Perry!
Eh… but it is the passengers, and Katy Perry has a WAY bigger audience than someone like Gayle King. She could’ve turned down the flight and then talked about how we should instead be using our wealth to give more women opportunities in STEM.
The current conversations about Katy Perry kinda sucking or being tone deaf provided an opportunity for someone to bring to my attention that Katy Perry was once in a years long battle with nuns to buy their property. One of the nuns was so stressed out that she died. The situation inspired a proposed new law around elder real estate abuse. It is named after Katy Perry.
Working with Dr Luke, flying to space to make eyes at the camera, being shocked that she’s getting backlash and then calling HERSELF gracious for how she handles said backlash (!!!) – all of these things seem like the kind of things a person who stressed a nun unto her death would do.
https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2018/03/10/592623697/nun-involved-in-katy-perry-convent-lawsuit-collapses-and-dies-in-court
I feel bad for her, but the “hate” is mainly just people saying her new album is bad, mocking the space thing, and making legitimate criticisms of things like her working with an accused rapist while promoting herself as a feminist. Those are all very legitimate things and not “hate” or “trolling”. None of the criticism I’ve seen has really been personal.
Compare that with the backlash against Taylor Swift which really was hateful and personal, and misogynistic.
The bottom line is, Katy Perry could rescue her career very quickly simply by releasing a phenomenal album. I’m not saying making great music is easy but a comeback has to start from the music, not PR stunts. Taylor Swift pulled off an insane comeback by going away, retreating from the public eye, and focusing on the work. Her music isn’t my cup of tea but she’s clearly talented at songwriting with an insane work ethic, and pulled off this epic comeback simply by releasing album after album.
I don’t know if Katy Perry writes her own songs but nothing she’s done indicates any interest in music, other than as a way to achieve fame, and she’s sticking with the same generic minimum effort bland high energy pop that made her famous, without any attempt to grow as a musical artist.
If she released an incredible album no one would care about any of the other stuff. Her work simply isn’t good enough, and it’s fair to point out when the work isn’t good.
Heck, Elon could have avoided some mess if Teslas had been consistently well-built—or if he ran X right. Competence/ producing worthwhile work is one thing egoheads like him and Perry always think they can skimp on. 🙄🙄🙄
With Blue Origin – if you stick your face out in front, then that’s where people will aim.
Katy deserves everything being thrown her way. From sexually assaulting two different men, the blue origin fiasco, working with dr luke, not handling the nun lawsuit correctly pr wise, putting out crappy albums back to back, using AI To do visuals on her latest tour, her cyber truck, etc. It’s just one thing after another, and she never takes responsibility. people arent piling on. They just have so much mess to be pissed about
Was she “unhinged and unhealed” when she feuded with Taylor or made comments about Britney Spears’ breakdown or made comments about a woman on American Idol who had 3 children?
The aerial acrobatics in her show are giving Temu P!nk.
True. The internet is a cesspool, but you made your own bigly mess by not staying relevant, aligning yourself with toxic men and not releasing good music consistently. You and your team misinterpreted a huge social media following and tabloid coverage as having a fanbase willing to shellout for a tour that seems modeled on the Eras Tour without having the same massive quality catalog of material to draw from as TS or the work ethic to put together an amazing 3 and a half hour concert like TS. Don’t align yourself with Nazi wannabe oligarchs/abusive men and expect smart, educated women to support you with the entertainment budget dollars, especially when you are painfully mediocre. Most magats don’t have the expendable cash most Democrats do and all these people aligning themselves as magat adjacent are going to crash and burn.
Make stupid choices win “unhinged and unhealed” comments. Katy doesn’t know how to take constructive criticism. Yes some of it maybe just nasty but she is coming off as all that and a bag of chips which she surly is not.
I wouldn’t be surprised if she had paid for the billboard herself only to play the victim as usual afterward.
Agreed—such boards ain’t cheap.
She’ll stare directly at the sun…
As a public figure, be prepared for adoration and hate. Don’t let the first go to your head or the second go to your heart. She should know this by now.
Not good at all