Katheryn Elizabeth Hudson born October 25, , known professionally as Katy Perry , is an American singer, songwriter, and television personality. Perry is one of the best-selling music artists in history , having sold over million units worldwide. She is known for her influence on pop music and her camp style, being dubbed the " Queen of Camp " by Vogue and Rolling Stone. At 16, Perry released a gospel record titled Katy Hudson under Red Hill Records , which was commercially unsuccessful.
She moved to Los Angeles at 17 to venture into secular music, and later adopted the stage name "Katy Perry" from her mother's maiden name. She recorded an album while signed to Columbia Records , but was dropped before signing to Capitol Records. Perry rose to fame with One of the Boys , a pop rock record containing her debut single " I Kissed a Girl " and follow-up single " Hot n Cold ", which reached number one and three on the U.
Billboard Hot respectively. The disco -influenced pop album Teenage Dream spawned five U. Her empowerment-themed album Prism had two U. Both their respective music videos made her the first artist to have multiple videos reach one billion views on Vevo and YouTube. Afterwards, Perry released the albums Witness and Smile and embarked on her Las Vegas concert residency titled Play — She released her seventh studio album, titled , in Perry has the second-most U.
Diamond-certified singles for any female artist six. Outside of music, she released an autobiographical documentary titled Katy Perry: Part of Me in , voiced Smurfette in The Smurfs film series — , and launched her own shoe line Katy Perry Collections in Perry served as a judge on American Idol from the sixteenth season in to the twenty-second season in Forbes ranked her as the world's highest-paid female musician in and From ages three to 11, Perry frequently moved across the country as her very strict parents set up churches before settling again in Santa Barbara.
Growing up, she attended religious schools and camps, including Paradise Valley Christian School in Arizona and Santa Barbara Christian School in California during her elementary years. Growing up, Perry and her siblings were not allowed to eat the cereal Lucky Charms as the word "luck" reminded their mother of Lucifer , and were also required to call deviled eggs "angeled eggs". She discovered popular music through CDs she smuggled home from her friends.
