Katy Perry

Katheryn Elizabeth Hudson (born October 25, 1984), better known by her stage name Katy Perry, is an American singer-songwriter and musician. Perry rose to fame in 2007 with her internet hit "Ur So Gay", and later scored in 2008 her breakthrough single "I Kissed a Girl".

Hudson was born and raised in Santa Barbara by Christian pastor parents and grew up listening only to gospel music. After earning a GED during her freshman year of high school, she began to pursue a music career. As Katy Hudson, she released a self-titled gospel album in 2001. In 2004, she recorded an album with production team The Matrix, but it was never released. After signing on with Capitol Music Group in 2007, she took on stage name Katy Perry and released her first mainstream album, One of the Boys.

Katy Perry was born Katheryn Elizabeth Hudson on October 25, 1984, in Santa Barbara, California, United States. The second child of two pastors, she has an older sister and younger brother. Her Evangelical mother, Mary Hudson, grew up in Southern California and had "a tempestuous first marriage in Zimbabwe". Her father was a West Coast scenester in the 1960s Perry's uncle and aunt were director Frank Perry and screenwriter Eleanor Perry.

Baptized a Christian, Perry was incorporated to her parents' ministry, and she started singing in their church from the age of nine; she continued singing in the church until she was seventeen. She grew up listening to gospel music and was not allowed to listen to what her mother called secular music. Perry attended Christian schools and camps. As a child, Perry learned how to dance in a rec hall in Santa Barbara. She was taught by seasoned dancers and began with swing, Lindy Hop, and jitterbug. She took her GED after her freshman year of high school and decided to leave schooling to pursue a career in music. Perry initially started singing "because I was at that point in my childhood where I was copycatting my sister and everything she did". She was in a constant fight to capture the attention of her parents off her sister's, who was at the time taking voice lessons. Her sister practiced with cassette tapes, and Perry took the tapes herself when her sister was not around. She rehearsed the songs and performed it to her parents, who suggested she should take voice lessons. She grabbed the opportunity and began taking lessons at age nine to sixteen. She enrolled in at the Music Academy of the West in Santa Barbara, and studied Italian opera for a short time.

Perry dated Gym Class Heroes frontman Travis McCoy, whom she met in a recording studio in New York, on and off for several years. After more than a year of friendship and casual dating, they became serious with their relationship right before they embarked into the 2008 Warped Tour. Perry and McCoy broke up in December 2008.. They began dating again in April 2009.

In June 2008, a publicity photo emerged that showed Perry posing with a switchblade. Tabloid The Sun reportedly criticized the photo as an attempt to glamorize knives. The picture was defended as only an effort to give Perry a "sexy, harder edge".