Katheryn Elizabeth Hudson, known as Katy Perry, is one of the largest and brightest pop figures of the last 15 years, one who filled the previous decade with some of the most iconic bubblegum pop hits of all time. She originally started as a Christian singer during her late teenager years and even released a commercially-unsuccessful album (Katy Hudson) in 2001 before moving to LA and, slowly but surely, started to escalate and get the attention from Hollywood's heavyweights like Max Martin and Glen Ballard before debuting properly with her rock pop album One of the Boys in 2008 with mixed reviews but strong commercial success. In 2010 she released the bubblegum pop album Teenage Dream, which got a record-tying five number one hits in the Hot 100 chart and launched to worldwide superstardom; a subsequent reissue (Teenage Dream: The Complete Confection) released in 2012 as a tie-in with her biographical 3D concert movie Katy Perry: Part of Me added another number one hit. In 2013 her more relatively mature album Prism debuted with positive reviews and soaring success, with the era concluding with a Super Bowl halftime performance that was the most watched broadcast in America's history. Her fourth album, Witness, was released in 2017 to mixed critical and commercial reception, with her latest album slated to premiere in 2020.

With around 140 million records sold worldwide, Katy is one of the best-selling artists of all time and the third best-selling female artist of the digital era, and has earned four Guinness World Records, five Billboard Music Awards, five American Music Awards, a Brit Award, and a Juno Award.