Katy Perry’s Never Met an Elderly Person With Property She Didn’t Want to Bully 

In the famous words of Sister Catherine Rose Holzman—one of the nuns who went to legal battle with Katy Perry over her purchase of their 8-acre convent—”Katy Perry, please stop.”

Perry has earned herself a reputation for purchasing property from elderly people who did not want to or did not mean to sell it. This has technically only happened twice, but both legal battles have taken years to play out, so it feels like Perry is relocating senior citizens and collecting their real estate like Kewpie dolls.

In the case of Carl Westcott, an 85-year-old veteran and the founder of 1-800-Flowers, a judge already ruled that Perry gets his home—but that’s not been enough for our gravity-defying space cadet.

In 2020, Perry purchased a Montecito mansion from Westcott but days later Westcott tried to back out of the deal, saying he was incapacitated due to painkillers following an intense back surgery and didn’t know what he was signing. (It’s always been fishy that his house went on the market and was sold within weeks without anyone representing him.)

Westcott—who also suffers from Huntington’s disease, a fatal brain condition—ultimately sued Perry and her then fiancé, Orlando Bloom, who then countersued. According to court documents, he’d only purchased the home two months before Perry and had been planning to live there “the rest of his life.”

However, in May 2024, a judge ruled in Perry’s favor, said that Westcott was fine when the sale happened, and awarded Perry the house. It’s a woman’s world, baby!!!

Now, Perry is demanding more than $5 million in damages from Westcott. In court documents filed on November 21, Perry says Westcott owes her for repairs on the home as well as to make up for the potential rent money she lost while their court battle dragged on. Nothing says “my last three albums flopped” like being a global pop star and demanding $5 million from a dying veteran whom you kicked out of his house.

In August, Perry testified over Zoom to a Los Angeles court, and when Westcott’s lawyer asked if she had anything to gain from the outcome of the trial, she responded, “Yes … justice; I stand to lose money if it does not work in my favor.” Roar, baby, roar, I guess.

Meanwhile, Westcott’s lawyers claim that Perry still owes him $6 million of the $15 million she agreed to pay for the property.

But let’s briefly circle back to Sister Catherine Rose Holzman. In 2014, Perry purchased a convent (in cash!) from the Archdiocese of Los Angeles for $14.5 million. But Holzman and another nun who lived on the property claimed they owned it and had already planned to sell it to hotelier Diana Hollister. The nuns even tried to get the Vatican to intervene.

In 2018, during an appeals trial, Holzman spoke those aforementioned infamous four words to the court—and then she collapsed and died. I don’t believe it’s a coincidence that Perry’s 2020 album, Smile, became her lowest-selling album of all time. I wasn’t raised Catholic, and even I know not to fuck with a nun.

They say bad things happen in threes, so if I were an elderly person with a mansion in the Los Angeles area, I’d be keeping a very wary eye on Zillow…

---

• If it couldn’t be Whitney Leavitt, I’m very happy it’s Robert Irwin who won Dancing With the Stars!!!! [USA Today]
• And also congrats to Alix Earle for getting second place! [Just Jared]
• Sydney Sweeney and Scooter Braun are snuggling in a pool. [Daily Mail]
• Not now sweetie, Jessi J is releasing break-up songs about Channing Tatum five years later. [Page Six]
• Andy Cohen proudly displayed his “gorgeous” feet while co-hosting Today. Guess he’s never been told not to give those shots away for free. [Entertainment Weekly]
• Elizabeth Olsen feels “so distant” from the current pop culture moment. [The Hollywood Reporter]
• New Nicole Kidman crime thriller. [Variety]

---

Like what you just read? You’ve got great taste. Subscribe to Jezebel, and for $5 a month or $50 a year, you’ll get access to a bunch of subscriber benefits, including getting to read the next article (and all the ones after that) ad-free. Plus, you’ll be supporting independent journalism—which, can you even imagine not supporting independent journalism in times like these? Yikes.