Katy Perry isn’t too pleased about the backlash she’s received after taking part in the Blue Origin space trip earlier this month.
In case you somehow missed this whole episode, Katy embarked on an 11-minute trip into space on 14 April on a spacecraft made possible by Jeff Bezos. The flight was all-female, and also included the TV anchor Gayle King, Jeff’s partner Lauren Sánchez, plus Aisha Bowe, Amanda Nguyễn, and Kerianne Flynn.
But after the fact, the trip drew all sorts of backlash — with celebs including Emily Ratajkowski, Olivia Wilde, Olivia Munn and Lily Allen expressing their disapproval. Many memes also criticised the project.
As arguably the most famous person onboard the flight, and as someone with her fair share of controversy under her belt already, Katy seems to have received the most amount of backlash out of the crew — and she certainly noticed.
The singer recently commented on an Instagram post from a fan account, thanking her supporters for being with her through thick and thin, and explaining that she’s doing okay despite the criticism she’s endured.
“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,” Katy wrote, seemingly referring to the backlash over her trip to space.
“I’m not perfect, and I actually have omitted that word from my vocabulary, I’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 and somehow through my battered and bruised adventure I keep looking to the light and in that light a new level UNLOCKS”
Many people criticised the Blue Origin flight as a display of “privilege” and hypocritical when it comes to protecting the planet.
Lily Allen has somewhat backtracked on her previous comments about it all.
She originally called out “Katy Perry and her mates all going up to space for 12 minutes” on her podcast (via BBC News). She added: “It’s so out of touch. Like, we’re on the brink of recession. People are really… struggling to make ends meet and put food on their tables.
“And the fact that they’ve, like, made it like some sort of feminist thing…”
But on a more recent episode of Miss Me, the English singer said: “There was actually no need for me to bring her name into it, and it was my own internalised misogyny.”
She continued: “I’ve been thinking about it a lot, and it was just completely unnecessary to pile on with her. I mean, I disagree with what it was that they did, but she wasn’t the only person that did it.”