Lily Allen has apologised for her recent comments about Katy Perry, after criticising the singer’s headline-making trip to space.
Allen, 39, was among a wave of critics who slammed the mission earlier this month, which saw Perry, 40, launch into space alongside broadcaster Gayle King, ex-NASA engineer Aisha Bowe, astronaut and activist Amanda Nguyen, film producer Kerianne Flynn, and Lauren Sanchez, who is in a relationship with Amazon founder Jeff Bezos.
During the 11-minute journey, Perry floated in zero gravity while singing What A Wonderful World, and described the experience as “life-changing.”
But while the flight was pitched as a historic moment for women, it quickly became the subject of viral memes, hot takes on TikTok and backlash online.
Among the loudest detractors was Allen, who took aim at the mission on her Miss Me? podcast, which she co-hosts with Miquita Oliver.
“Katy Perry and her mates going up to space for 12 minutes…” Allen said, before Oliver quipped: “If they’re going to go up to space for 12 minutes, we can talk about it for 10 seconds and that’s about all it deserves.”
Allen responded: “I mean, what the f***ing hell is that all about?”
“I just think it’s so out of touch - we’re on the brink of a recession, people are really struggling to make ends meet, it just seems like things are hard at the moment.”
When Oliver asked if it was “really the most appropriate time to send Katy Perry into space?”, Allen replied: “For absolutely no reason! It’s like we send people to space to discover things, for scientific reasons.”
She also poked fun at the attempt to frame the flight as a feminist milestone.
But just days later, Allen used the next episode of her podcast to offer a full apology for singling Perry out.
“I would actually like to apologise for being mean about Katy Perry last week,” she said. “There was actually no need for me to bring her name into it, and it was my own internalised misogyny.
“I’ve been thinking about it a lot, and it was just completely unnecessary to pile on with her.”
While Allen stood by her disapproval of the space flight itself, she admitted she could have expressed it differently.
She added: “I disagree with what it was that they did, but she wasn’t the only person that did it. She was possibly the most famous and the one that divides people the most.”
Allen wasn’t the only person to vocalise their criticism of the flight, model and author Emily Ratajkowski also spoke out against it, calling the space mission a “parody” and saying she was “disgusted.”
While Perry described the flight as “life-changing,” Gayle King said she was “saddened” and “disappointed” by the negative reaction.
“There was nothing frivolous about what we do,” she said.
Speaking to CBS Morning, she added: “Space is not an either or. It’s a both and, and because you do something in space, doesn’t mean you’re taking anything away from Earth. And what you’re doing in space is trying to make things better here on Earth.
“What Blue Origin wants to do is take the waste here and figure out a way to put it in space to make our planet cleaner. Jeff Bezos has so many ideas, and the people that are working there are really devoted and dedicated to making our planet a better place. That’s number one.”
