She IS a little onion, isn’t she? Peeling away layer after layer with every new interview…

In her Vogue cover story, Katy Perry spoke about her strict Christian upbringing and her early career in gospel and Christian rock music

“I miss references all the time. [Christian singer] Amy Grant was our Madonna. We knew about Madonna and Marilyn Manson in my family because we picketed their concerts.”

Which is… hysterical.

Perry went on to describe handing out ‘How To Find God’ pamphlets at a Manson gig in Santa Barbara when she was younger. Having ended up going into the show, the star said she found it “really interesting and weird”.

Of her life growing up, Perry said: “My house was church on Sunday morning, church on Sunday night, church on Wednesday evening; you don’t celebrate Halloween; Jesus gives you your Christmas presents; we watch Bill O’Reilly on TV. That was my whole childhood and youth and early teens. I still have conditioned layers dropping off of me by the day.”

Other choice quotes:

She is still overthrowing her internal biases:

“The schools were really makeshift. Education was not the first priority. My education started in my 20s, and there is so much to learn still.”

“[I was not] allowed to interact with gay people,” and “there is some generational racism. 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. I still have conditioned layers dropping off of me by the day.”

She wants to be woke:

“I don’t think you have to shout it from the rooftops but I think you have to stand for something, and if you’re not standing for anything, you’re really just serving yourself, period, end of story…. fluffy stuff would be completely inauthentic to who I am now and what I’ve learned…We need a little escapism, but I think that it can’t all be that. If you have a voice you have a responsibility to use it now, more than ever.”

She has been the victim of toxic men:

“I wouldn’t really stand for it in my work life, because I have had so much of that in my personal life.”
On the election:

“I was really disheartened for a while; it just brought up a lot of trauma for me. Misogyny and sexism were in my childhood: I have an issue with suppressive males and not being seen as equal. I felt like a little kid again being faced with a scary, controlling guy.”

Some kick-ass looks from the layout below.

(via ONTD, full interview at Vogue)