Katy Perry Gives Terrible Explanation for Why She Chose to Work With Dr. Luke
It's been almost two months since Katy Perry released "Woman's World" — her disastrous new single (and accompanying "satirical" music video) that's sparked one of the more embarrassing pop star press cycles in recent memory. Not only does the "female empowerment" jingle include some of the most banal and mind-numbing lyrics of this millennium, but it was produced with Dr. Luke—the producer Kesha accused of drugging and raping her.
On Wednesday, Perry appeared on Call Her Daddy to address the intense backlash she's received for collaborating on a song about being lucky to live in a woman's world with a producer accused of sexual assault, and yikes, the explanation was nearly as bad as the "Woman's World" chorus.
Alex Cooper began by confirming Perry's star sign, which is Scorpio, but she's also a Scorpio moon and Scorpio rising, which is a shit ton of Scorpio energy. "Scorpios are like, really intuitive, that's like our secret power is intuition," Perry said. So I guess Perry's Scorpian intuition took the summer off.
Cooper then asked about her upbringing, her career, her sex life with Orlando Bloom, etc., etc, before ending the episode with the question we've all been (or at least, I've been) waiting for: “I know a lot of people have expressed disappointment and were really upset that you decided to involve Dr. Luke on this album. Why did you choose to work with him?”
“Look, I understand that it started a lot of conversations," Perry began. "He was one of many collaborators that I collaborated with. But the reality is, it comes from me. The truth is, I wrote these songs from my experience of my whole life going through this metamorphosis. And he was one of the people to help facilitate all that. One of the writers, one of the producers." So far, not good!
“I am speaking from my own experience. When I speak about ‘Woman’s World,’ I speak about feeling so empowered now as a mother, as a woman, giving birth, creating life, creating another set of organs, a brain, a heart — I created a whole ass heart!” she continued. That's great, and congrats, but I'm still not understanding the strategy here.
"And I did it! And I'm still doing it. And I'm still a matriarch, and feeling really grounded in that, that's where I'm speaking from," she concluded. "So, I created all of this with several different collaborators — people that I’ve collaborated with from the past, from the 'Teenage Dream' era, from all of that.” OK.
And that was it! She chose to involve Dr. Luke on "Woman's World" because she created life and being "a matriarch" helped her feel so grounded that she was able to ground herself all the way back into 2010, completely dismissing the allegations against him, and also, apparently, everything that's happened over the last 14 years. So "Woman's World" is less a "female empowerment" anthem and more a "female amnesia" anthem. Got it.
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