Katy Perry Biography

Singer

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Name at birth: Katheryn Elizabeth Hudson

Katy Perry's not-quite-naughty single "I Kissed a Girl" was a big summer hit in 2008 and made the vampish singer a star. Lyrics like "The taste of her cherry Chapstick / I kissed a girl just to try it / I hope my boyfriend don't mind" won Perry fans, critics, and plenty of lucrative attention; The Times called the song a "lipgloss-lesbian anthem." The middle child of two evangelical ministers, Perry sang in her parents' church until she was 16, when she got a GED, left high school, and began chasing a music career in Nashville. Her 2001 gospel rock album, Katy Hudson, was a flop. But she moved to Los Angeles, changed her stage name to Katy Perry and her style to straight pop, and began perfecting a wide-eyed enthusiasm that was half Bettie Page and half Betty Boop. (Blender magazine calls her style "thrift-store bombshell.") She had a modest hit with the 2007 EP Ur So Gay. That set the stage for her multi-platinum 2008 album One of the Boys, with the hits "Hot n Cold" and "Thinking of You" as well as "I Kissed a Girl," which won Perry a Grammy nomination for best female pop vocal performance.

Extra credit: Her stage name, Perry, is her mother's maiden name; she adopted it, she has told reporters, because her real name is too close to that of actress Kate Hudson... Perry has a tattoo reading "Jesus" on the inside of her left wrist... Perry writes many of her own songs; she also plays the guitar... Perry has dated Travis McCoy, the singer for the hip-hop band Gym Class Heroes.