The singer cried while thanking the crowd for “always being there” for her before closing out the set with “Firework”
Less than two weeks before Katy Perry kicked off the Lifetimes Tour, the singer was relentlessly criticized for taking an 11-minute trip into suborbital space, where she attempted to reveal the tour setlist. Still, she powered through the criticism while completing the first North American leg of the tour. In June, she headed to Australia for a 15-date run that concluded with an emotional address to the crowd as she weathers an entirely different hardship: her split from Orlando Bloom.
“Thank you for always being there for me, Australia. It means the world,” Perry said at the Adelaide Entertainment Centre, her voice slightly cracking. After blinking away the tears, she added, “Now let’s sing ‘Firework.’”
The moment seemed reminiscent of a scene in her 2012 documentary Part of Me, when she broke down backstage over the dissolution of her marriage to then-husband Russell Brand. Given the option to cancel the show or put her best foot forward, Perry put on a smile and emerged from the stage to perform “Teenage Dream.”
Reports of Perry’s split from Bloom surfaced last week. Days later, it was reported that the couple ended their engagement after nine years together. Neither have publicly addressed the breakup, which was confirmed by People and first reported by TMZ. Perry and Bloom briefly split in 2017, but reunited one year later. They announced their engagement in 2019. In August 2020, the couple welcomed their daughter, Daisy Dove.
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People reported that Perry and Bloom’s relationship had been “breaking down the last couple of months and isn’t looking good,” after the singer was “stressed” about the reception of her album 143. “Perry seems aware of her unmoored state on 143, but that doesn’t stop her from trying to reclaim the cultural spot that she had in in the late ‘00s and early ‘10s through tricks — cheap if hooky affirmations, broad appeals to the male gaze — that worked back then,” Rolling Stone wrote in a review of the record.
The Lifetimes Tour will resume in North America on July 10 with a show in Denver. The tour is scheduled to run through early December. Perry will perform in South America, Europe, and Asia for a total of 89 shows.
