Katheryn Elizabeth Hudson (born: October 25, 1984), known professionally as Katy Perry, is an American singer, songwriter, and television judge.
Early life[]
Katheryn Elizabeth Hudson was born in Santa Barbra, California on October 25, 1984. Her parents are Pentecostal pastors, Mary Christine (née Perry) and Maurice Keith Hudson.
Between ages three to eleven, Hudson and her parents often moved across the country to help set up churches before resettling in Santa Barbra. During her elementary school years, she attended Paradise Valley Christian School in Arizona and Santa Barbara Christian School in California. Her family had often struggled with their finances, as they used food stamps and salvaged food from food banks, which also helped the congregation at Hudson's parents' church.
Hudson and her siblings had restrictions of certain foods, such as not being able to have Lucky Charms and calling deviled eggs "angeled eggs". Hudson, having fondness of gospel music, constantly listed to the genre after sneaking into her siblings' belongings to find CDs. At age nine, she began vocal training with her sister Angela. When she became a teenager, Hudson received her first guitar as a birthday present. She also had other hardcore hobbies during her teenage days, such as roller skating, skateboarding, and surfing.
Hudson attended Dos Pueblos High School and completed her GED requirements. At age fifteen, she dropped out of the program to pursue a career in music.
Music career[]
Katy Hudson[]
After dropping out of high school, Hudson attended the Music Academy of the West, where she took music lessons while renting some facilities there. Her skills garnered the attention of Steve Thomas and Jennifer Knapp from Nashville, Tennessee, who took Hudson there to help further improve her skills. While relocating to Nashville, Hudson began recording demos as she was learning how to write songs and play the guitar. She signed with Red Hill Records in an effort to record an album.
Recording sessions took place at four different studios across the state of Tennessee. Those studios consisted of The Velvet Elvis in Nashville, the House of Tom and Sound's Kitchen in Cool Springs, and Kong's Cage in Franklin. The album, Katy Hudson, was released on March 6, 2001. It included ten tracks, but never spawned a single or gained much popularity. The release only sold 200 copies, which eventually foreshadowed the downfall of Red Hill Records.
Hudson went on a national tour to promote her release, but was never really successful. In order to beef up her career, Hudson decided to switch from the gospel genre to a more secular type of music. To buffer her much needed anguish, she worked with and wrote material with producer Glen Ballard. By age seventeen, Hudson moved to Los Angeles. In 2003, Hudson had a brief performance with actress Kate Hudson. To avoid celebrity confusion, she adopted her mother's maiden name by using the alias Katy Perry.
Career decline[]
In 2004, Perry signed with Java Records, which was then affiliated with The Island Def Jam Music Group. She began working on a new album, but the project was scrapped after Java was dropped by Def Jam. Meanwhile, Perry was introduced to Tim Devine, an A&R executive at Columbia Records. She signed with the label on the spot and began development for new material over the next two years. During her solo sessions, she also collaborated with Desmond Child, Greg Wells, Butch Walker, Scott Cutler, Anne Preven, The Matrix, Kara DioGuardi, Max Martin, and Dr. Luke on some stints. As her record was near completion, Perry was dropped by Columbia Records in 2006. Afterwards, she worked at an independent A&R company called Taxi Music.
One of the songs she recorded while with Taxi Music, "Simple", was featured for the soundtrack of the 2005 film The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants. She also provided provided backing vocals on Mick Jagger's song "Old Habits Die Hard", which was included on the soundtrack to the 2004 film Alfie. She evenly did background vocals on P.O.D.'s single "Goodbye for Now" and was featured at the end of its music video in 2006. Lastly, Perry also appeared in the music video for "Learn to Fly" by Carbon Leaf, and played the love interest of her then-boyfriend, Gym Class Heroes lead singer Travie McCoy, in the band's music video for "Cupid's Chokehold".
One of the Boys[]
After having very little to no success within the past six years, Perry sent demos to Virgin Records. She was eventually signed with Capitol Records in April 2007. Looking for her first big breakthrough, she recorded "I Kissed a Girl" and "Hot n Cold" with the support of Dr. Luke. The single "Ur So Gay" eventually foreshadowed an EP of the song title released on November 20, 2007.
One of the Boys was released on June 17, 2008, being the first album since Perry took the alias after her mother's maiden name. The standard edition included twelve tracks. The album along with the mentioned singles became greatly successful as electro pop and sound technology was gradually improving within the passing years.
Discography[]
- Katy Hudson (2001)
- One of the Boys (2008)
- Teenage Dream (2010)
- Prism (2013)
- Witness (2017)
- Smile (2020)
Filmography[]
- The Smurfs (2011)
- Katy Perry: Part of Me (2012)
- The Smurfs 2 (2013)
- Brand: A Second Coming (2015)
- Katy Perry: The Prismatic World Tour (2015)
- Katy Perry: Making of the Pepsi Super Bowl Halftime Show (2015)
- Jeremy Scott: The People's Designer (2015)
- Zoolander 2 (2016)
Subscriber Milestones[]
Note: The following dates are according to Social Blade. Dates may vary by one or two days due to differences in time zones.
- 1 million subscribers: December 1, 2011
- 2 million subscribers: October 29, 2012
- 3 million subscribers: March 11, 2013
- 4 million subscribers: August 16, 2013
- 5 million subscribers: September 20, 2013
- 6 million subscribers: October 24, 2013
- 7 million subscribers: November 19, 2013
- 8 million subscribers: December 10, 2013
- 9 million subscribers: January 6, 2014
- 10 million subscribers: February 3, 2014
- 11 million subscribers: March 4, 2014
- 12 million subscribers: April 18, 2014
- 13 million subscribers: July 17, 2014
- 14 million subscribers: October 12, 2014
- 15 million subscribers: February 8, 2015
- 16 million subscribers: May 29, 2015
- 17 million subscribers: October 10, 2015
- 18 million subscribers: February 21, 2016
- 19 million subscribers: July 17, 2016
- 20 million subscribers: October 31, 2016
- 21 million subscribers: February 21, 2017
- 22 million subscribers: April 23, 2017
- 23 million subscribers: June 14, 2017
- 24 million subscribers: August 24, 2017
- 25 million subscribers: October 1, 2017
- 26 million subscribers: December 29, 2017
- 27-28 million subscribers: April 4, 2018
- 29 million subscribers: April 11, 2018
- 30 million subscribers: June 20, 2018
- 31 million subscribers: August 26, 2018
- 32 million subscribers: January 11, 2019
- 33 million subscribers: April 20, 2019
- 34 million subscribers: June 13, 2019
- 35 million subscribers: September 12, 2019
- 36 million subscribers: January 20, 2020
- 37 million subscribers: March 11, 2020
- 38 million subscribers: August 14, 2020
- 39 million subscribers: November 3, 2020
- 40 million subscribers: February 28, 2021
- 41 million subscribers: June 30, 2021
- 42 million subscribers: December 16, 2021
- 43 million subscribers: June 14, 2022
- 44 million subscribers: March 12, 2023
Gallery[]
