Katy Perry Said She’s Like Lucille Ball — There’s ‘Something Wrong About Me’
Lucille Ball and Katy Perry are two very different celebrities, however, that didn’t stop Perry getting compared to Ball. Perry faced this comparison on multiple occasions. Here’s what she had to say about the redhead television icon and her relation to her own work.
Katy Perry is supposedly a combination of Lucille Ball and this other celebrity
A comparison between Ball and Perry might seem odd at first. After all Ball wasn’t much of a musician (though she rocked the saxophone on I Love Lucy) and she wasn’t known for the cheeky sexuality that’s part of Perry’s appeal. However, Perry has often incorporated campy humor into her work, much like Ball in her prime.
During a January 2008 interview with The Star Scoop, Jazmin Whitley asked Perry to describe her sound. “Someone kind of penned it for me the other day, and I’ve been using it ever since,” Perry said. Perry noted other artist didn’t want to discuss their idols. On the other hand, Perry had no issue doing so because she wanted to help people understand what her sound was like. After all, she noted, she was not a household name yet.
Then Perry discussed a pair of artist, one of whom was not a musician. “Someone said I was like a mixture of Lucille Ball and Freddie Mercury, and I have that Lucille Ball thing about me where everything looks really great on the outside, rocking that 1940s look, but on the inside there’s just something just kind of wrong about me,” Perry said. “The Freddie Mercury, which I pale in comparison to, obviously. He is pretty much my biggest influence/idol. He’s very theatrical and boisterous and he always said what he thought and really didn’t give a f*ck what anybody thought about when he walked on the stage with a crown and looked like a queen.”
Other times the Katy Perry/Lucille Ball comparison came up — and how Perry reacted to it
Interestingly, the comparison between Perry, Ball, and Mercury didn’t end there. Teen Vogue published an article about Perry’s style in September 2008. Part of it said “Part Lucille Ball, part Freddie Mercury, this chart-topping California chanteuse is redefining pop music’s fashion scene one vintage-inspired look at a time.”
Outside of these instances, Perry made the Ball comparison herself. In an interview with Today, Perry said her style was a combination of Ball’s and Bob Mackie’s because she wanted to make people laugh. For content, Mackie is a famous costume designer who worked with celebrities like Cher, RuPaul, Tina Turner, and Bette Midler. Mackie is known for over-the-top, flashy outfits, like the showgirl outfit Cher wore to the Academy Awards. In a similar vein, Perry tweeted that she wanted to be “the Lucille Ball of pop music.” It’s up to fans to decide if she succeeded, however, Perry and Ball are definitely icons.
