Back in 2010, before Katy Perry clung to her fame by agreeing to star in the ill-fated reboot of American Idol, releasing embarrassing, meme-filled music videos, and participating in days-long livestreams, she did it the old-fashioned way: by starting a relationship with someone way out of left field. In her case, that person was sweaty and outspoken English comedian Russell Brand.
Their marriage lasted just 14 months, and famously ended with a text from Brand to Perry, which she memorialized in a 2013 song called “Ghost.” (Perry addressed the relationship more broadly in “Part of Me,” one of those triumphant, I’m-doing-just-fine-thank-you-very-much anthems she’s become known for.)
Since their split—which was surprisingly amicable, given Brand’s childish actions—both parties have spoken highly about the other in interviews, but an understandable tension has remained. Back in 2013, in her first Vogue profile, Perry said:
“He’s a very smart man, and I was in love with him when I married him…Let’s just say I haven’t heard from him since he texted me saying he was divorcing me December 31, 2011.”
Immediately following their split, Brand told Howard Stern:
“I was really, really in love with her, but it was difficult to see each other…It mostly didn’t work for practical reasons…I don’t want anything to hurt her. She’s younger than me, she’s a young woman and she’s beautiful and she’s sensitive and I care about her deeply.”
And now, almost six years after performing RIP over SMS, Brand says he’s willing to make amends. In an interview with Grazia, he said:
“It was a very important and lovely time in my life. I don’t regret being married to Katy at all. I have very positive feelings about that whole experience and Katy is an extraordinary woman. I’m willing and open for reconciliation, any kind. Because if we can’t overcome our relatively trivial personal disputes in this world, what hope is there for us?”
Sure, he may be trying to use the hellish state of the world in 2017 as a way of excusing his past behavior, but it’s sort of working for me here! I’ll take thoughtful, mature statements like Brand’s (and Perry’s) over Twitter rants and Notes App screenshots any day of the week.
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Still here. Still without airbrushing. Still with teeth.
