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Backstage at the top-secret rehearsals for the biggest gig in American showbiz, in a large, stuffy room marked “Wardrobe,” a dozen or so half-naked female dancers wriggle into candy-colored, body-hugging costumes and pull on matching socks and sneakers. At the center of the action is Katy Perry‘s Super Bowl Inspiration Is Super Weird
One of those times came in early January, when she was spotted at dinner with Mayer in L.A. (The pair have dated at least twice since 2012. She also was married to Russell Brand for 14 months starting in late 2010 and was reported to have been dating Diplo last year.) She declines to define their relationship, bristling at the question. “What I will say is that to have any relationship at this level you have to just be protective and figure out how to navigate it,” she says. “There is no handbook.” She thinks about it, and adds, “In all my relationships, I’ve learned how I have to be more careful and that it’s not up for public consumption.”
Perry’s parents were hippies-turned-Evangelical ministers, home-schooling Perry and her two siblings and raising them according to a deeply conservative, fire-and-brimstone belief system. The family, who lived mostly in Santa Barbara, Calif., was poor enough that food wasn’t always easy to come by. “But I love my childhood,” she says. “Because I can’t change it and it made me who I am.” Perry regrets her lack of formal education, and stays informed about news and issues that are important to her, including her outspoken support for LGBT rights. “I grew up in a little bit of a bubble of ignorance and judgment,” she says. “And so I’m happy that I’ve been able to evolve past that.”
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At 13, Perry convinced her parents to bring her to Nashville to seek a career as a gospel singer; she released an album on a Christian label at 16. But after discovering secular artists, from Queen to Gwen Stefani, she moved to L.A. and shifted her ambitions — first aiming to be a acoustic guitar-wielding singer-songwriter, later settling on her current plan: global pop domination. She bounced from contract to contract — “I had two cars repossessed, I was always going by the hair of my chinny chin chin” — before landing on Capitol Records. Working with Dr. Luke, Max Martin and Benny Blanco, she broke through with 2008’s button-pushing “I Kissed a Girl.” Since then, that core team (often helped by songwriter Bonnie McKee and others) has produced a string of No. 1 songs. “My strengths are melodies and lyrics,” Perry explains. “Max is the king of melodies and Luke is the king of, like, sounds. When we get together we make the biggest songs.”
“Everyone has been asking me if I’m going to be nervous before the halftime show,” Perry says. “I’m like, I’m f—ing human. This is the biggest event of my career.” To prep, she has been studying recent shows, with extra attention on Beyoncé in 2013 and Madonna in 2012. “Those performances are clean and streamlined,” she says. “They’re about the catalog, the songs. I like Madonna for the graphic effects she brought.” And Beyoncé? “She brought so much strength, so much sassiness and just the right amount of sex,” Perry says. “She’s an icon. Elvis, The Beatles, Michael Jackson — she’s in that category. I’m not. She’s like five notches above me, and those levels are compounded in difficulty.”
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She also reached out to Bruno Mars, a buddy from awards shows, who had the halftime gig in 2014. (She insists she doesn’t have many close celebrity friends — she’s probably tightest with Rihanna, Adele and Ellie Goulding.) She scans the email on her phone — “let me just make sure it’s kosh” — before reading it out loud:
Hello, exclusive Super Bowl club member! I was wondering if you are in L.A. at all this month and would have tea with a sister who is about to throw up with nervousness re: [football emoji]. I’ve heard about your process through our managers, but am wondering if you had more insight on important things like, spray tan the night before or three nights before? JK, or maybe not!
“I’m going to meet up with him and he’ll tell me whatever there is to tell,” Perry says. “Although I don’t know how much there really is.” She knows that no matter how much she prepares, the halftime show is live, and as Janet Jackson and M.I.A. demonstrated, anything can happen. “You can’t control other people, and hopefully they’re on the same path with you,” she says. “My special guests” — including Lenny Kravitz — “don’t have any agenda other than the music. But you can never be too sure.” Kravitz claims that he and Perry have been cooking up a surprise. “It’s cool because it’s different for me,” he says. “Our voices are going to blend well together.”
Perry’s focused on the opportunity: Playing for an audience so vast that it will include some of the few remaining human beings who have never heard of her. What’s her strategy to win them over? It’s simple, Perry says: “I want the show to be quintessential Katy. It’s like the exclamation point on the whole last cycle. This is the cherry on top of everything I’ve already done.”