Katy Perry says she felt like ‘human piñata’ during backlash to space flight

Katy Perry has spoken out against the backlash over her recent space trip, admitting that she feels “battered and bruised” by the criticism.

The pop star addressed the controversy two weeks after the Blue Origin voyage that saw her join five other women for an 11-minute flight on 14 April.

While it was billed as a historic and feminist moment – as the first female-only mission in more than six decades – it was derided by many as a marketing stunt for Jeff Bezos’s space tourism business, while others complained about the environmental impact of the trip.

Perry in particular received ridicule for her “over-the-top” display both during and after the expedition, including the moment she knelt down and kissed the ground after the crew landed safely.

For the trip, she joined Bezos’s fiancee – American journalist Lauren Sánchez – along with Gayle King, former NASA rocket scientist Aisha Bowe, civil rights activist Amanda Nguyen, and film producer Kerianne Flynn in a Blue Origin rocket launched in the Texas desert.

On Tuesday (29 April), Perry responded to an account that posted video footage of a huge billboard in Time’s Square, New York, which was paid for by fans to show their support for the “Dark Horse” singer ahead of her world tour.

“We are so proud of you and your magical journey,” the billboard said, before signing off: “From your worldwide cats,” in reference to the name given to Perry’s fanbase, Katy Cats.

Perry said she was “so grateful” for her fans and added that they were in “this beautiful and wild journey together”.

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

She said she is ”not perfect“, but rather 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,” she continued.

“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 a dumping ground for unhinged and unhealed.”

Perry’s world tour will run until December and include visits to the US, Canada, South America, Europe and the United Arab Emirates. She has received further mockery since kicking off the tour in Mexico City, as some critics said her dancing was “embarrassing”.

However, she has received an apology from fellow pop singer Lily Allen, who said she felt “mean” for her own comments about Perry’s space mission and blamed them on her “own internalised misogyny”.

“I’ve been thinking about it a lot, and it was just completely unnecessary to pile on with her,” Allen said.

“I do disagree with what it was that they did, but she wasn’t the only person that did it,” Allen continued. “She was possibly the most famous and the one that divides people the most, and so, I don’t know, there was something in me that decided to choose her as the person that should… Anyway, I just, I’m really sorry.”

In her statement, Perry said she was looking forward to “seeing your faces every night, singing in unison, reading your notes, feeling your warmth”.