Katy Perry created a "character" for herself when she launched her pop career in order to forget the person she was growing up.
Katy Perry
Born Katheryn Hudson, the daughter of two Christian pastors, Katy had a regimented upbringing and admits she wasn't a cool kid at school.
It was from her past where her alter ego Katy Perry was born as she was determined to become a larger than life performer who could deal with the attention.
She told The Observer newspaper: "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.
"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.' "
Katy, 32, readily admits she found it "scary" to be herself when she began her career, hence the huge change in image from her 2001 debut album, which was named 'Katy Hudson', to the naughty bubblegum pop princess who released 'One of the Boys' in 2008.
She explained: "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.' I didn't want to be Katheryn Hudson. I hated that, it was too scary for me, so I decided to be someone else."
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