Katheryn Elizabeth Hudson (born October 25, 1984), known professionally as Katy Perry, is an American singer, songwriter, and television personality. Known for her influence on modern pop music and her campy style, she has been referred to as the "Queen of Camp" by Vogue. Pursuing a career in gospel music at 16, Perry released her debut album, Katy Hudson, under Red Hill Records in 2001, which was commercially unsuccessful. She moved to Los Angeles at 17 to venture into secular music, and later adopted the stage name "Katy Perry" from her mother's maiden name. She recorded an album while signed to Columbia Records, but was dropped before signing to Capitol Records.

She rose to fame with One of the Boys (2008), a pop rock record containing her debut single "I Kissed a Girl" and follow-up single "Hot n Cold", which reached number one and three on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 respectively. The disco-influenced pop album Teenage Dream (2010) spawned five U.S. number one singles—"California Gurls", "Teenage Dream", "Firework", "E.T.", and "Last Friday Night (T.G.I.F.)"—becoming the only album by a female singer to do so. A reissue of the album titled Teenage Dream: The Complete Confection (2012) subsequently produced the U.S. number one single "Part of Me". Her empowerment-themed album Prism (2013) had two U.S. number one singles "Roar" and "Dark Horse". Both their respective music videos made Perry the first artist to have multiple videos reach one billion views on Vevo. The electropop album Witness (2017) featured themes of feminism and a political subtext, while Smile (2020) was influenced by her recent motherhood and mental health journey. Afterwards, she embarked on her Las Vegas concert residency titled Play (2021–present), receiving critical acclaim and commercial success.

Perry is one of the best-selling music artists of all time, having sold over 143 million records worldwide. All of her studio albums released under Capitol have individually surpassed one billion streams on Spotify, totaling six billion streams. She has nine U.S. number one singles, three U.S. number one albums and has received various accolades, including a Billboard Spotlight Award (currently the only female artist to have one), four Guinness World Records, five Billboard Music Awards, five American Music Awards, a Brit Award, and a Juno Award. Perry has been included in the annual Forbes lists of highest-earning women in music from 2011 to 2019. Her acclaimed Super Bowl halftime show performance in 2015 is the most watched in history. Outside of music, she released an autobiographical documentary titled Katy Perry: Part of Me in 2012, voiced Smurfette in The Smurfs film series, and launched her own shoe line Katy Perry Collections in 2017. Perry began serving as a judge on American Idol during its sixteenth season in 2018. She is also the most-followed woman and the third most-followed person on Twitter, with over 100 million followers.