Dmitri Kurkin "Thirty-two - a beautiful age. I like! I would not exchange it for the opportunity to become a twenty-year-old. I became much calmer. And I learned a lot: patience, the ability to say "no", the fact that life does not necessarily end with marriage, "- says Katy Perry in one of the recent interviews timed to the release of her new album" Witness ". This could be taken as a standard set of self-motivating banalities ("This album is the best I've done, these songs completely reflect my personality" and so on.. - you probably heard this many times), if you do not know about the singer's past. For her, self-taught from the family of a Christian pastor, a life free from dogmas and taboos began somewhere around twenty, and since then she really had to master a lot of survival skills in show business.

Take the same interview. It does not matter if Katy Perry passed the training course for communication with the press, which is often arranged for the management of major labels for her wards, or the ability to give out exemplary "pop star interviews" came to her with experience - her singer knows the maneuver perfectly. Avoid the specifics, answer the most streamlined - in extreme cases it will be possible to say that you were misinterpreted. Take the interviewer's compliments with such surprise, as if you hear them for the first time. Instead of answering an inconvenient question, change the subject. Smile. It's not so much insincerity as the basis, and Perry, who still remembers her past, had to learn them. She sometimes gets confused in the testimony - she simply managed to give two different answers to a simple question about a new short haircut - but it's still difficult to catch her hand. She almost three years eluded the topic of the Cold War with Taylor Swift (she allegedly dedicated her song "Bad Blood") and only in a recent conversation with James Corden admitted - yes, the conflict really dragged on. By that time, she had a response - a joint single with Nicky Minage "Swish Swish" - but Perry also rounded the sharp corner as carefully as possible, saying that the track was not specifically addressed to Swift, but generally "to everyone who tries to persecute you". Maybe so, although the text with the refrain "swish swish, bish" significantly narrows the circle of suspects. Katy Perry had to make a lot of efforts to leave the past life, leaving almost no prints. About the album "Witness" (the wordplay for Russian is difficult to translate, but the title clearly refers not only to the "witness", but also "wit" - the self-expression of an intelligent person , Not deprived of a sense of humor) Katy Perry speaks as a collection of songs about liberation. "Chained to the Rhythm" - about the political power of the will, "Bon Appetit" - about sexual emancipation, "Swish Swish" - cm. higher. The release became the key motive for Perry, but she does not interpret it as a call to arms (for this, please, to Madonna and Lady Gaga), but how to rewrite itself over and over again, erasing the previous version. Perry is not a rebel, she is Holly Golightly from "Breakfast at Tiffany's". And, like the heroine of Capote, she had to make a lot of efforts to leave her past life, leaving almost no prints. An exemplary daughter Perry recalls how she went to the concerts of Madonna and Marilyn Manson during teenage years - not to listen to them, but to protest against blasphemous artists and distribute to their fans leaflets "How to find God". "Our Madonna was Amy Grant", - says the singer, referring to the star of Christian music, with which 17-year-old Cathy Hudson (at that time she was writing under her passport name) was compared first. Pop music in the Hudson house, the repentant hippies who joined the Pentecostal church, was strictly forbidden, like most Hollywood movies, but they did not limit the list of sinful attributes of the outside world. Under the sanctions, for example, flakes for breakfast "Lucky Charms" - simply because of the name ("luck", this diabolical trick, Pentecostal should reject, entirely relying on the higher providence). But, while still a child, Cathy mastered the glossolalia: "Speaking in tongues for me was in the order of things - how to ask salt". Pop music in the Hudson house was strictly forbidden, like most Hollywood films. Music was originally a continuation of the Christian mission for her, although the co-author and first mentor Cathy, Brian White, had to convince her to write explanatory to the songs - they say people should know that The romantic feelings she experiences solely to God. For all modesty of the image - a black dress in peas, shabby jeans - in the texts of the young singer even then the ambiguity. Falstart in Christian rock with Katie Hudson happened more for technical reasons: the label Red Hill went bankrupt, barely having time to sell two hundred copies of her debut album. The singer took the failure with due humility and several more years tried to restart her career, but did not move further than the back-up vocalist in the new metal band P. , Barely perceptible behind the backs of their faith brothers. America's Sweetheart Perry especially does not hide the desire to be an all-American darling - even if for the sake of it one would have to flirt with an outspoken camp on the verge of vulgarity. John Seabrook in The Machine of Songs can not resist a greasy joke, telling that the young Cathy was thinking about reducing the breast, but then decided not to reject God's gift. And of course, between the performer of Christian songs and the heroine of the clip "California Gurls", sprinkling whipped cream from the bra, that's the distance, but at the heart of these very different versions of the singer, in general, the same desire - to take the chosen role and bring Her to the absolute. Even if at the cost of self-sacrifice. Under the crossfire she fell repeatedly: almost at the same time she was defamed by the odnoverets on the one hand, and LGBT activists on the other. Perry crossed fire repeatedly: almost at the same time she was defamed by ex-believers (in this sense, the mother of the singer got even more), on the one hand , And LGBT activists on the other (the latter could not forgive her songs "UR So Gay", and carefree flirting with a lesbian theme in "I Kissed a Girl" also did not go unnoticed). Add to this the accusations of cultural appropriation, Islamophobia, support for Taiwan's separatism and subconscious sabotage against the Australian flora (the importation of the delicious version of the Prism album, in the packaging of which whole seeds were used, was banned by the local customs) - and the list of sins Katy Perry will almost be beaten. Almost, because if one has over the years brought to the extreme the idea of ??"a girl is a dream of a white American," then, of course, this is Cathy. Pop positivism has always gravitated toward absurdity, but, for the sake of justice, even in it, Perry managed to drill a loophole: her clip on "Birthday", in which the incognito singer works on family holidays, is one of the most touching and human pop videos shot for last years. Perhaps it was it that prompted Katie the next move - and the next image for the reboot. Goodwill Ambassador New Katy Perry - the sample of 2017, the album "Witness", the divorce from Russell Brand and the short-term romance with Orlando Bloom, as well as the recognition that in thirty years life does not end - humanitarian activist. The release of the album is timed to its campaign for the organization of the Boys and Girls Club, which helps low-income children: it's not just a matter of the percentage of album sales and tickets for concerts, but Perry's personal involvement in charitable events. This is not the first humanitarian project of the artist: she has been engaged in philanthropy for almost ten years, helping a dozen different funds and donating money for medicine, social protection, fighting for ethical treatment of animals and contemporary art, and in December 2013 she became UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador. "Witness", with songs about acquiring harmony and awareness of inner strength, in a sense sums up this stage of reinvention of itself in the role of the Man of the World and a fighter for all the good times.

She still loves playful sexuality, but even the video on "Bon Appetit", where yesterday's unconditional favorite of all sorts of lists of "The Hottest Women of the World" is literally devoured by adorers, ends with a fig in her pocket and an unambiguous statement of empowerment. The new role obviously had to taste the actress, and, perhaps, it will put an end to her transformations. But do not be surprised if, after eight years, her next, absolutely different version will tell you that she is the real Katy Perry. Photos: Katy Perry Original article: Not without sin: How the music was brought by Katy Perry.

From church to pop olympus.