KortneyKaty Perry covers the August 2018 issue of Vogue Australia and in it talks to her friend Derek Blasberg about meeting Pope Francis, protecting her relationship, how a personal growth retreat helped her let go of everything that was holding her back and more.
Katy explains: “For years, my friends would go [to the Hoffman Institute] and come back completely rejuvenated, and I wanted to go, too. I was ready to let go of anything that was holding me back from being my ultimate self. I have had bouts of situational depression and my heart was broken last year because, unknowingly, I put so much validity in the reaction of the public, and the public didn’t react in the way I had expected to … which broke my heart.” After a decade of back-to-back hit albums and record-breaking successes (she tied Michael Jackson for most number-one hits off a single record in 2011), her career hit a plateau with 2017’s Witness album. “Music is my first love and I think it was the universe saying: ‘Okay, you speak all of this language about self-love and authenticity, but we are going to put you through another test and take away any kind of validating “blankie”. Then we’ll see how much you do truly love yourself.’ That brokenness, plus me opening up to a greater, higher power and reconnecting with divinity, gave me a wholeness I never had. It gave me a new foundation. It’s not just a material foundation: it’s a soul foundation.”
Like the remedy for an iPhone that keeps freezing, her week in the Hoffman program was a system reboot. “I believe that, essentially and metaphorically, we are all computers, and sometimes we adopt these viruses via our parents or via the nurture that we are given or not given growing up. They start to play out in our behaviour, in our adult patterns, in our relationships.” Her time at Hoffman comes up often in conversation and she never shies away from the discussion of mental health. In fact, she’s given Hoffman gift certificates to friends when she sees them struggling. “I recommend it to everyone, my good friends and other artists who are looking for a breakthrough. There are a lot of people who are self-medicating through validation in audiences, through substances, through continually running away from their realities – denial, withdrawal. I did that for a long, long time too.”
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