There’s a scene from Katy Perry’s 2012 tour documentary Part of Me that is unforgettable for anyone who sees it – for all the wrong reasons. A pink-haired Perry, riding high on the success of her multi-platinum album Teenage Dream and due to perform in front of thousands of screaming fans that night, is lying crumpled in a chair, weeping. Moments before, she had received a text from Russell Brand, her husband of just over a year; in the message, he had told her that their marriage was over.
“You can cancel the show, or you can do your best,” one of Perry’s team tells her, clutching her hand. She chooses the latter, but there is a horrible dissonance between her cartoonish performance gear – a dress with a bodice adorned with whirling candy wheels – and her obvious heartbreak. Before she rises onto the stage through a trapdoor, we see her arrange her face into a popstar-perfect smile, but the happiness doesn’t quite reach her eyes.
It has always been a wrenching moment, a reminder of how stratospheric fame can’t cushion you from the anguish of a relationship breaking down – especially when that relationship ends in such brusque fashion.
