Katy Perry opened up about her conservative, Christian upbringing in a recent interview with Vogue.
Perry, 32, grew up with evangelical Pentecostal pastors as parents. She admits her family would picket Madonna and Marilyn Manson concerts and watch Bill O’Reilly. They also didn’t celebrate Halloween.
“Education was not the first priority. My education started in my 20s, and there is so much to learn still,” Perry told Vogue.
The pop star continued that she wasn’t “allowed to interact with gay people” and that, “there is some generational racism” in her family.
“But I came out of the womb asking questions, curious from day one, and I am really grateful for that: My curiosity has led me here. Anything I don’t understand, I will just ask questions about,” Perry says.
Perry broke onto the music scene with her 2008 single “I Kissed a Girl” and revealed during the Human Rights Campaign Gala last month that’s not all the experience she has.
“For instance, I kissed a girl and I liked it. Truth be told, I did more than that. How was I going to reconcile that with a gospel-singing girl raised in youth groups that were pro-conversion camps? What I did know is that I was curious and even then I knew sexuality wasn’t as black and white as this dress,” Perry said while accepting the National Equality Award.
