American singer-songwriter and TV personality Katy Perry was born 40 years ago as Katheryn Elizabeth Hudson in Santa Barbara, California, is engaged to actor Orlando Bloom and has a daughter.
During her elementary years, Katy attended religious schools in view that her parents were Pentecostal pastors. Initially, she listened to gospel music, and with the help of her sister’s cassettes she started to practise singing and even sang in front of her mum and dad who agreed to let her take vocal lessons at the age of 9. She also sang in church until she was 17.
On her 13th birthday, Katy was gifted with a guitar and began writing songs which she also performed publicly. In addition, she wanted to learn to dance, so she took jitterbug, swing and Lindy Hop lessons, as well as listened to her friends’ CDs and discovered popular music. She stated that her sister Angela, Alanis Morissette and Freddie Mercury are her biggest music influences.
Perry’s debut album was released in 2001 but was commercially unsuccessful. At 17 years old, she moved to Los Angeles, wrote the song ‘Thinking of You’ and performed new music in a live music venue. Katy worked on a solo record, collaborated with several songwriters, provided backing vocals and also featured in a music video but so far had negligible success.
In 2008, Katy made a career breakthrough with the release of her second album ‘One of the Boys’. It features the number one worldwide hit single ‘I Kissed a Girl’ as well as the US number 3 track ‘Hot n Cold’. In the 5 years that followed, she had another 8 US and/or international number one hits namely ‘California Gurls’, ‘Teenage Dream’, ‘Firework’, ‘E.T.’, ‘Last Friday Night (T.G.I.F.)’, ‘Part of Me’, ‘Roar’ and ‘Dark Horse’.
In total, Perry released 7 studio and 1 compilation albums, 7 EPs, 40 singles and 11 promotional singles. She embarked on 4 concert tours, hosted a concert residency in Las Vegas and gave 162 live performances. Katy also appeared in some videos and acted in a movie.
Perry is also an avid philanthropist and over the years has supported various charitable institutions regarding cancer, HIV/AIDS and children’s education and well-being, amongst others.
During her +20-year career, Katy received 108 awards including 16 ASCAP Pop Music, 14 People’s Choice, 7 MTV Video Music and 5 American Music. With estimated global record sales of more than 143 million, she is considered as one of the best-selling music artists ever as well as one of the world’s richest music artists.
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