Katy Perry on the cover of the 'Rolling Stone' courtesy Beth Furtwangler/Wenner Media
In the new issue of Rolling Stone, Katy Perry takes contributing editor Erik Hedegaard backstage at the kick-off of her California Dreams Tour. Between the elaborate rehearsals and three-hour make-up sessions, Perry reveals that she’s recently undergone a political awakening. “It just feels like the thing running our country is a bank, money,” she says. “I know it sounds like an intense viewpoint, but I’m only slowly but surely getting the wool taken off my eyes. When I was a kid, I asked questions about my faith. Now I’m asking questions about the world.”
She continues: “I think we are largely in desperate need of revolutionary change in the way our mindset is. Our priority is fame, and people’s wellness is way low. I saw this knowing full well that I’m a part of the problem. I’m playing the game, though I am trying to reroute. Anyway, not to get all politically divulging and introspective, but the fact that America doesn’t have free health care drives me f***ing absolutely crazy, and is so wrong.”
Other highlights:
-It took Perry a while to learn to embrace her body. “I started praying for [breasts] when I was, like, 11,” she says. “And God answered that prayer above and beyond, by, like, 100 times, until I was like, ‘Please, stop, God. I can’t see my feet anymore. Please stop!’ I was a lot more rectangular then. I didn’t understand my body. Someone in sixth grade called me ‘Over-the-shoulder boulder holder.’ I didn’t know I could use them. So, what I did was, I started taping them down. How long did I tape them down for? Probably until I was about 19. And, no, I don’t have any psychological pain because of it.”
For more, go to www.rollingstone.com.
–Perry is the first artist to ever have at least one song ranked in the top ten of the Billboard Hot 100 for a full year – but she remains a polarizing figure. “Whenever people ask me about having bad reviews, I’m like, ‘Have you seen the run I’ve had? Have you seen the numbers?'” she says. “Numbers do not lie!” At the same time, she recognizes the limitations of pop music. “I’m not a dummy,” she says. “I know ‘California Gurls’ isn’t going to save the world. But I got a lot of heart from my upbringing and I put a lot of heart in my songs.”