Katy Perry has opened up about her sexuality and experimentation as a young woman growing up in a religious family.
The singer, who stormed the charts - and courted some controversy - with her single, I Kissed a Girl back in 2008, accepted the National Equality Award at the 2017 Human Rights Commission Gala in LA over the weekend and was candid in her acceptance speech about "kissing girls".
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Katy Perry accepts National Equality award
The pop star discusses the time she 'kissed a girl', at the Human Rights Campaign Gala in Los Angeles, in the US. Vision: Channel Seven.
"Truth be told, I did more than that!" she said as she accepted her award.
"But how was I going to reconcile that with the gospel-singing girl raised in youth groups that were pro conversion camps?
"What I did know was that I was curious, and even then I knew that sexuality was not as black and white as this dress.
"But in 2008, when that song came out, I knew that it started a conversation that a lot of the world seemed curious enough to sing along to it."
Perry also spoke about the inner turmoil that she experienced about her burgeoning sexuality as the daughter of two pastors.
Perry revealed that she "prayed the gay away at Jesus camps", and only later, after making the leap from gospel music to the mainstream, would she find her own tribe of people who lived outside what her upbringing had taught her.
The "bubble started to burst", she said.
"These people were nothing like I had been taught to fear," she said.
"They were the most free, strong, kind and inclusive people that I have ever met. They stimulated my mind, and they filled my heart with joy, and they danced with joy while doing it.
"These people are, actually, magic and they are magic because they are living their truth."
Perry has been criticised in the past for attention seeking with I Kissed a Girl and appropriating gay lifestyles; some have accused her of homophobia.
This year Perry announced that she was taking "respectful, loving space" from Orlando Bloom. The couple had dated for a year.