Featured Image Credit: Blue Origin
Controversy surrounding Katy Perry's trip to the stars continues, with the "Roar" singer making a lot of noise in the aftermath of her 11-minute journey to space.
While Blue Origin was supposed to send a message of empowerment with the first all-female space flight since Valentina Tereshkova's solo mission in 1963, it's instead been branded as everything from 'cringe' to a waste of money.
At the center of it all, it seems Perry has become an unfortunate scapegoat.
Jeff Bezos assembled the all-female crew for the April 14 flight to space, with fiancée Lauren Sánchez, Perry, journalist Gayle King, aerospace engineer Aisha Bowe, research scientist Amanda Nguyen, and businesswoman Kerianne Flyn making up the mission.
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Even before the six powerful women blasted off, there was controversy surrounding the message that Bezos was trying to portray. The Newsroom's Olivia Munn called it 'gluttonous', and since then, many female celebrities have spoken out about it.
While King and Sánchez have clapped back at their critics, Perry seems to be taking the most flak, notably going viral for the meme of her kissing the ground.
Things have gotten pretty nasty online, with even Wendy's (yes, the fast food restaurant) dragging the artist on X.
Whether it be holding a daisy up in honor of her daughter, or singing Louis Armstrong's "It's a Wonderful World", Perry couldn't do right for doing wrong as she became the poster girl for NS-31.
As reported by DailyMail.com, Perry apparently 'regrets' her behavior during the four minutes she was actually in space and afterward, with one insider telling the outlet: "Katy doesn't regret going to space. It was life-changing. What she does regret is making a public spectacle out of it."
The criticism is supposedly unexpected for the former American Idol judge and 'disheartening' for the rest of the women.
Alongside being called out for holding a paper butterfly to promote her upcoming Lifetimes tour, Perry has been critiqued for her speech, where she told the world in a post-flight interview: "It's not about singing my songs. It's about a collective energy in there. It's about us. It's about making space for future women and taking up space and belonging.
You don’t get to go spend tens of millions of dollars, act like you found the meaning of life in 11 minutes, and claim it all in the name of feminism. Get a grip.
— Mistress Maya 🎉🎂 April 21st (@mistress_maya_x) April 15, 2025
“And it's about this wonderful world that we see right out there and appreciating it. This is all for the benefit of Earth."
The source reiterates that she 'regrets’ her behavior immediately after emerging from the capsule. Holding up a daisy was a tribute to four-year-old daughter, Daisy Dove Bloom, Perry supposedly used it to show how she's "proud of her and show her daughter that she can do anything." Unfortunately, that message has largely been lost, with the article explaining how Perry "regrets sharing the daisy with the world" and "wishes the video footage from inside the pod was never shown" to the world.
It doesn't help when critics have started highlighting the apparent environmental impact of the supposed 'green' Blue Origin launch, with a resurfaced video from Perry championing climate change awareness for UNICEF in 2015.
Unfortunately, the idea of an all-female flight to space and Blue Origin's apparent mission to keep sending celebrities to space meant this was always going to be something of a media circus.
