Katy Perry Said People Saw Her as ‘Damaged Goods’ Early in Her Career

Katy Perry released her debut album in 2001. She shared why no record label wanted her after she released it.

Katy Perry began her career in the early 2000s with a vastly different sound than the one she has today. Perry, who was born Katheryn Hudson, released her debut album under her given name. It performed so poorly that she said no record label wanted to come near her in the aftermath.

Katy Perry said her career had a rocky start

Perry began pursuing music from an early age. When she was just 13, she convinced her parents to take her to Nashville to record an album. Four years later, she moved to Las Angeles to pursue music in earnest.

Perry grew up with two Pentecostal pastors as parents and she drew on her strict religious upbringing when crafting her debut album. Titled Katy Hudson, she released the album in 2001 to an utter lack of fanfare. She only sold an estimated 200 copies. Afterward, no label wanted to work with her.

“People saw me as damaged goods,” she told the Guardian in 2017.

She shifted to secular music and eventually signed to Capitol Records in 2007.

She said the character of Katy Perry helped her establish her career

In Perry’s mind, part of what helped her rise to success was the creation of the Katy Perry character.

“A lot of people are living in fear from something that happened in their childhood, or some form of PTSD they picked up along the way, and I created this wonderful character called Katy Perry that I very much am, and can step into all the time, but I created that character out of protection,” she said. “I was scared that if you saw me, Katheryn Hudson, the girl wearing the Bioré strip on my nose, you’d be like, ‘that’s not glamorous’. It was me going, ‘OK, I’ve been upset my whole childhood so I’m going to show the world I am something, that I am going to do something and that I am enough.’”

She said it was too frightening to put herself out there without the polished veneer of the character.

“I didn’t want to be Katheryn Hudson,” she said. “I hated that, it was too scary for me, so I decided to be someone else.”

She faces backlash ahead of the release of her latest album

Over two decades after she released her unsuccessful debut album, Perry is gearing up to release her latest studio album, 143. She released the lead single, “Woman’s World” on July 10.

“I set out to create a bold, exuberant, celebratory dance-pop album with the symbolic 143 numerical expression of love as a throughline message,” she said in a statement, per Rolling Stone.

While many fans celebrate her first album in four years, others have denounced Perry for working with producer Dr. Luke. In 2014, Kesha alleged that Dr. Luke drugged and raped her in 2005. He claimed she defamed him with the accusations, and the two became involved in a lengthy legal battle.

Many fans have expressed disappointment that Perry would release a single intended to empower women while working with Dr. Luke.