By Rohit Sabarikanth ‘26
Once on top of the world, pop star and historically dubbed “Queen of Pop” artist Katy Perry has fallen from royalty status and is now considered one of the most hated and embarrassing artists in the world. But how did she fall so far? What went so wrong in her career to tarnish her crown? Before her new album era, people assumed it was her diss track “Swish Swish” featuring Nicki Minaj, but now we know the real reasons.
The first blemish in her crown appeared on July 11th, 2024, with the release of her brand-new single “WOMAN’S WORLD” for her highly anticipated comeback album 143. Perry had started the buildup for her album after skipping the 2024 Met Gala and posting an Instagram story claiming she was creating “perfection,” also known as her new song. This helped build hype among fans and casual listeners, as the album was described as reminiscent of her hit Teenage Dream, which established her as pop royalty. However, once the song dropped, fans were severely disappointed. The critiques centered around three major issues. First up was the song itself: many fans (including myself) found it to be a cringey and surface-level “empowerment song.” Some people also claimed that the song was AI-generated and ran it through an AI detector (which I did too). ZeroGPT came up with a staggering 72.69% AI-generated rating.
A screenshot from the website ZeroGPT, which analyzes text for AI generation. The result shows a 72.69% AI/GPT-generated score for lyrics allegedly from Katy Perry’s “WOMAN’S WORLD.”
Screenshot from zerogpt.com
This is horrible for the arts because of what it implies. AI may be grammatically correct, but it is not human; it is soulless and creates soulless shells of work, which is exactly what the song feels like. Moving past the song itself, there is the music video. The music video for “WOMAN’S WORLD” is incredibly controversial because it attempts to reclaim a woman’s sexuality but is obviously made for the viewership of men. Katy Perry even dressed up as the iconic image of women’s empowerment, “Rosie the Riveter,” and sexualized that character as well. Moving even further beyond the art itself, Katy Perry, while creating an “anthem” of women’s empowerment, worked with an accused sexual abuser by the name of Doctor Luke as her producer. This took aback the general public because working with someone who has those severe allegations against him for an empowerment song is clearly a red flag.
The second scratch in Katy Perry’s crown was her trip to space. Katy Perry was part of a “historic” expedition to space on the Blue Origin spacecraft. This event was heavily marketed as a massive advancement in history, especially for women, since all passengers were women. However, once the ship landed back on Earth after its eleven-minute voyage, people were quick to clock the controversy of the flight. Perry reportedly paid over $150K to be on this flight. While there is the argument that it is her money and she can do what she wants with it, the argument was not necessarily about the money itself. The main argument against her trip to space was the environmental impact. People claimed that Katy Perry spent over $150K to contribute to the environmental destruction of Earth by attending this space expedition.
Katy Perry floats in zero gravity while holding a flower during her flight on a Blue Origin spacecraft. This moment became emblematic of both the mission’s branding and the backlash over environmental concerns.
Image via Blue Origin
The final crack in Katy Perry’s crown was her “Lifetimes Tour” for her failing album. 143 was flopping, people were hating, “WOMAN’S WORLD” was flagged for being AI-generated, and Perry’s team thought the best thing to do was to announce a tour. The “Lifetimes Tour” was a failure for many reasons. It was marketed as her version of an “Eras Tour,” with songs from all of her albums. However, to many of the fans’ surprise, the tour only contained non-143 songs from one other album. The next issue was the actual tour. Katy Perry was bashed for her choreography, set design, and again, the use of AI in her show. Her backdrop was made up of AI images, and her choreography included her fighting a giant iPad. It is safe to say that fans were severely disappointed with the tour and with Katy herself, wondering how she managed to become so cringey and fall from her former glory.
Katy Perry performs on stage wearing a provocative, uterus-inspired costume embellished with red and pink gems, as part of her Lifetimes Tour.
Photo by Kevin Mazur / Getty Images for Katy Perry
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