What do you learn about Katy Perry after spending three days with her? A lot. ELLE's Amanda FitzSimons—who trailed Perry for the Sydney, Australia leg of her Prismatic tour—found her to be (a) an eloquent talker, (b) intensely likable, (c) a strategic thinker, (d) a micromanaging businesswoman, (e) smart, and (f) unfiltered.
In ELLE's March issue, Perry speaks candidly about working with the NFL, meditating, nude paparazzi, and much more. The full interview can be found exclusively on newsstands on February 17th, but until then, here's a taste of the real-life Katy Perry, who just dropped the mic on an epic Super Bowl halftime performance:
On prepping for the Super Bowl halftime show...
"In my show, I am boss daddy. I am boss mommy. They call me Boss. Everything goes through my eyes; I call all the shots, 100 percent of it. With the NFL, I have to be accountable to several levels of red tape. There are many committees I have to go through for my costumes, the budgets of my show, every interview—everything, I have to report to somebody. So I am no longer the boss; I have to relinquish that control. We love this opportunity, but once you decide you're gonna do the Super Bowl, you're gonna have no fucking life for six months. It is the biggest thing. Anyone that's ever done it has been scared shitless. You stay off the Internet for the five days afterward."
What are Perry's thoughts about her contemporaries, say, Beyoncé?
"Oh my God. I'm such a big Beyoncé fan. Beyoncé just put out a video! You've got to see this video!" She's referring to the now viral grainy, black-and-white 11-minute reel featuring a barefaced, teary-eyed Beyoncé, spouting existential verse set to moody music. "I was like, Finallllly. FinallyI see you. I don't see some propaganda version of you. I see you. I relate to who you are."
And Adele...
"Adele is so real and couldn't care less about the trappings of fame. She came to a show at the Hammersmith Apollo in England and stole my after-show burrito. She's like [heavy British accent], 'How the fuck did you get a burrito in England?'"
And on the pop-star phenomenon:
"It is a hundred times harder a dream than the dream that I dreamt when I was nine...You think you signed up for one thing, but you automatically sign up for a hundred others. And that is why you see people shaving their fucking heads."
And if all the pop stars were characters in a soap opera?
"You've got to name someone the villain, someone the princess, someone the mom-, the dad-type—you know there always have to be characters. As pop figures, we're all characters. And the media uses that. Who is the sweetheart, who is the villain? You know. Taylor's the sweetheart. Kanye's the villain. That's the narrative."
To go further down the rabbit hole with Katy Perry, pick up ELLE's March 2015 issue on newsstands February 17th.
