Katy Perry responds to ‘unhinged’ online criticism following controversial space flight and tour

Katy Perry has reassured fans she’s doing “OK” following a challenging few weeks.

The singer, 40, recently copped backlash over her history-making all female flight to space on Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin rocket and after kicking off her global Lifetimes tour.

In a poignant message to her KatyCats fanbase, the singer described the online world as treating her like a “human Piñata” but insisted she’s taking it with “grace”.

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“I’m so grateful for you guys. We’re in this beautiful and wild journey together,” she wrote on Instagram. “I can continue to remain true to myself, heart open and honest especially because of our bond.”

The hitmaker, known for songs including Roar and Teenage Dream, said that the internet can be an “unhinged” place.

“Please know I am OK, I have done a lot work around knowing who I am, what is real and what is important to me,” she went on.

“My therapist said something years ago that has been a game changer, ‘No one can make you believe something about yourself that you don’t already believe about yourself,’ and if I ever do have any feelings about it then it’s an opportunity to investigate the feeling underneath it.

“When the ‘online’ world tries to make me a human Piñata, I take it with grace and send them love, cause I know so many people are hurting in so many ways and the internet is very much so a dumping ground for unhinged and unhealed.”

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Touching on her tour, she added: “What is real is seeing your faces every night, singing in unison, reading your notes, feeling your warmth.”

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“l’m on a human journey playing the game of life with an audience of many and sometimes I fall but… I get back up and go on and continue to play the game.

Katy Perry’s life and career in photos

“Somehow through my battered and bruised adventure I keep looking to the light and in that light a new level UNLOCKS <3.”

The post comes after some legs of Perry’s tour have been plagued by reports of poor ticket sales, while some critics have slammed the tour’s choreography and costumes.

Perry’s recent trip to space on April 14 also garnered backlash.

Perry was joined by Gayle King, Lauren Sánchez, Aisha Bowe, Amanda Nguyen and Kerianne Flynn on the historic spaceflight that marked the first all-female mission since 1963.

But it came with criticism from several high-profile people, about the 10-minute space flight that took place aboard Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin New Shepherd spacecraft.

Singer Lily Allen had said the flight was “out of touch” but later apologised for being “mean” about Perry on her Miss Me? Podcast.

“There was actually no need for me to bring her name into it and it was my own internalised misogyny,” she said. “I’ve been thinking about it a lot and it was just completely unnecessary to pile on with her.”

Allen wasn’t alone in her criticisms; Olivia Munn, Olivia Wilde and Emily Ratajkowski were among many to share their criticism on the space flight.

Meanwhile her fellow space passenger Gayle King responded to the criticism in the days after the flight.

“There was nothing frivolous about what we did. So, you know I’m very disappointed and very saddened by it,” she said on CBS Mornings, the breakfast show she hosts.

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