Katy Perry allowed cameras to follow her in her most intimate moments during her California Dreams tour to collect footage for her Katy Perry: Part of Me concert film.
"The only times she waved the cameras off was when she was dressing," says makeup artist Todd Delano. "The cameras were with us, good times and bad."
Nowhere is that more evident than before a September 2011 concert in São Paulo, when Perry is shown backstage sobbing, holding a necklace given to her by her husband, Russell Brand. Their relationship was disintegrating, and her distress is so great that manager Bradford Cobb offers to cancel the show.
"She's always the strong one. But sometimes when you hold things in so much, it just bursts," Delano says. "I was like, 'Cry it out, girl.' "
Stylist and longtime friend Johnny Wujek says Perry is "so strong, it's very rare to see her weak. There's been times I've seen her cry, but never that upset. It was the stress of the tour, the stress of no sleep, and then Russell. She just broke down."
But Perry says she never thought about missing the show.
"I'm a woman of my word. If I say I'm going to be there, I'm going to be there," she says. "I've only had to cancel one show before, and that still eats at me. There was no way I was going to reschedule."
Perry instead is shown dramatically transforming into concert game face before turning on a sparkly dress with electric twirling decorations — then elevating onto the stage.
"I was like a phoenix," Perry says. "There's a switch that I use to turn on (the dress). In some ways, I had to turn on that switch in me that night. For two hours, I had to slap myself across the face and be like, 'This is not their problem.' "
Perry laments that "it's so boring to be a grown-up. But I chose to be a grown-up in situations like that."
