Katy Perry and Russell Brand met on set when she filmed a brief cameo for his 2010 film Get Him to the Greek that didn’t make the final cut of the movie. The pair confirmed they were dating not long before they announced they were engaged in early 2010, and they got married in Hawaii in October of that year.
They announced their split just 14 months later in December 2011, and Perry later told Vogue she hadn’t heard from her ex “since he texted me saying he was divorcing me.” The pop star, who is now dating former Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, posited Brand couldn’t “handle” her being his “equal.”
On Wednesday’s show, Brand joined Megyn to discuss his new book How to Become a Christian in 7 Days, take responsibility for what went wrong in the relationship, and reflect on how that prepared him for his marriage to his wife Laura Gallacher Brand.
His Relationship with Perry
Brand confirmed that he has, in fact, not reached out or spoken to his ex-wife since telling her he wanted a divorce, but he said he has maintained some contact with her parents, ministers Keith and Mary Hudson, whom he described as “good Christian folks.”
The actor and comedian admitted he “didn’t handle that marriage very well” and, “in retrospect,” can “absolutely [see] what the problem was.” In his new book, Brand described the situation as being married to the idea of celebrity. And he told Megyn that while he was in love with Perry, he was also in love with the attention their relationship garnered.
“When you fall in love with someone, like, isn’t it amazing to be in love? Isn’t it so amazing,” he asked. “Well, imagine that sort of compounded with everyone else acting like it’s important. It’s like, ‘Oh my god.'”
He called the “Roar” singer “a very beautiful person” who is “incredibly driven and worked really, really hard” for her success, and Brand acknowledged he may have been intimidated by her level of stardom.
“Here’s me taking total responsibility for all the mistakes I made in that marriage,” he shared. “I wanted to grab her like, ‘There, got it’… I felt like I was inadequate and not enough on my own, so I saw this big, glorious thing, even though I knew her as a person as well… Everyone is a normal person.”
Perry was 25 years old when she married Brand, and he said it is his “fault” they got hitched when they did. “I pushed to get married early because I felt inadequate and insecure and like I wasn’t enough, and that, if I was married to her, I would somehow be a better person and more important,” he explained. “That put her under an unnecessary amount of pressure and strain, and… she couldn’t fulfill those obligations.”
“She was, quite rightly, one might argue… pursuing her dream, of which she successfully did, of being the world’s most famous pop star,” Brand continued. “And when she was doing that, I was in sort of a crisis of, like, Hold on a minute. I’m lonely, and this isn’t working… I’ve married a pop star. Come on. Why, why is this not working?“
Katy and Justin
Brand maintained that Perry “was really, really, really, really lovely” and he seemed very supportive of her nearly decade-long relationship with her most recent ex, Orlando Bloom. But he had a bone to pick with her current high-profile relationship.
“I put up with a lot with that ex-wife of mine, but you took it too far, KP,” he quipped. ” Orlando Bloom… I love that guy. Brilliant. Trudeau, though, potentially Fidel Castro’s spawn. No, there we draw the line.”
While he called Trudeau “a child God,” Brand said he is not over how he treated the truckers protesting COVID vaccine mandates in Canada and he questioned his sincerity. “I specifically don’t like what is typified by those good looking politicians, [Barack] Obama, [Emmanuel] Macron, [Tony] Blair,” he explained. “They’re sort of good looking and they’re charming. But you think, who do you work for really? Who’s running this? Because it can’t be you. And I don’t like that sort of pose of compassion that’s absolutely undergirded by selfishness, probably because I recognize it myself. I’m so selfish sometimes.”
He joked that he was holding out hope Perry “could come to her senses at any minute” and move on from Trudeau.
Lessons Learned
While Megyn wondered if Brand and Perry could have worked if fame wasn’t involved, he said he believes they probably would not have because he was “fated to marry my incredible wife.” But he seemed to recognize that he needed to go through that marriage and his subsequent relationship with British socialite Jemima Khan to get to this place.
“I didn’t learn the lesson [after Perry],” he recalled. “Then, I went on to go with Jemima Khan, who was married to the now-jailed former leader of Pakistan [Imran Khan]… She’s like a billionaire heiress, and glorious, and amazing hair, and a 300-acre estate, and riches. And I thought, ‘Yes, yes, this. Then, I will be okay… That’s it. I got some of the details wrong. It wasn’t an American pop star, it was a British aristocrat.’ Then, of course, once again, she is a human being and I, in my own foolish way, objectify her. So, I had to learn that lesson.”
But he believes all that led him to where he is today. “Finally, I think now I have learned: Don’t try to take things from people,” Brand said. “Just leave people alone, be happy in your marriage, and serve God as best you can… Remember, you’re going to forget that all the time like an idiot and go back to thinking life is about you. But… [now] I have people around me now who are following God in their own broken way and I just can look at them [and] how they’re doing it.”
You can check out Megyn’s full interview with Brand by tuning in to episode 1,301 on YouTube, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you like to listen. And don’t forget that you can catch The Megyn Kelly Show live on SiriusXM’s The Megyn Kelly Channel (channel 111) weekdays from 12pm to 2pm ET.