Katy Perry is looking at you, Hollywood. The 32-year-old pop star revealed in a cover story interview with Vogue that she believes all celebrities should use their platforms to take a stand politically, and slammed those who don’t use their voice to sound off on key issues and current events.
“I don’t think you have to shout it from the rooftops, but I think you have to stand for something,” Perry, who graces the cover of the fashion bible’s May issue, told the magazine. “And if you’re not standing for anything,” she added, taking aim at stars who have remained noticeably silent in our country’s divisive political climate, “you’re really just serving yourself, period, end of story.”
Perry, whose music video for her latest single “Chained to the Rhythm” uses metaphors to shed light on issues such as the mortgage and loan crises and the poisoned-water epidemic in Flint, Michigan, told Vogue that the sweet-as-candy aesthetic she adopted for her hit 2010 album, Teenage Dream, doesn’t speak to her anymore.
“‘California Gurls’ and fluffy stuff would be completely inauthentic to who I am now and what I’ve learned,” she explained to the publication. “I do believe we need a little escapism, but I think that it can’t all be that. If you have a voice, you have a responsibility to use it now more than ever.”
Perry, a vocal supporter of former Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, also said that she was truly disappointed after the former secretary of state lost last year’s election to her Republican rival, President Donald Trump.
“I was really disheartened for a while; it just brought up a lot of trauma for me. Misogyny and sexism were in my childhood: I have an issue with suppressive males and not being seen as equal,” she said. “I felt like a little kid again being faced with a scary, controlling guy.”
The singer, who performed at the Democratic National Convention last July, added, “I wouldn’t really stand for it in my work life, because I have had so much of that in my personal life. But it’s an awakening that was necessary because I think we were in a false utopia. … We can’t ever get that stagnant again. I am so grateful that young people know the names of senators. I think teenage girls are going to save the world! That age group just seems to be holding people accountable. They have a really strong voice — and a loud one.”
