Katy Perry will release her new album ‘Smile’ on August 14th, after dropping a single of the same name on Friday (10.07.20).
The 35-year-old singer took to her Instagram account to reveal the album artwork, which features her wearing a big red clown nose while looking glum, and revealed she penned the title track while going through "one of the darkest periods of [her] life".
She wrote: "Step right up! Step right up! KP5 is called #SMILE
"I wrote the title track from the album when I was coming through one of the darkest periods of my life and had lost my smile. This whole album is my journey towards the light – with stories of resilience, hope, and love. Listen to the song at midnight local time Friday, July 10 and pre-order the album at the link in bio. (sic)"
Katy – who is expecting her first child with boyfriend Orlando Bloom – also admitted she hopes the song ‘Smile’ will give people "hopefulness", as it did when she was penning the tune.
She added: "#SMILE – the song – is out everywhere now! I hope it can be a few minutes of energizing hopefulness for you as it is for meee (sic)"
Katy’s new album will include the already-release singles ‘Never Really Over’, ‘Harleys in Hawaii’, and ‘Daisies’.
In May, Katy admitted her 2017 split from Orlando – who she has since reconciled with – left her "broken", and she was hoping to feel excited about her record ‘Witness’, but the album didn’t perform to her expectations.
She said: "My career was on this trajectory when it was going up, up and up and then I had the smallest shift, not that huge from an outside perspective. But for me it was seismic.
"I had given so much out, and it literally broke me in half. I had broken up with my boyfriend, who is now my baby daddy-to-be.
"And then I was excited about flying high off the next record. But the validation did not make me high, and so I just crashed.
"It was so important for me to be broken so that I could find my wholeness in a whole different way. And be more dimensional than just living my life like a thirsty pop star all the time.
"Gratitude is probably the thing that saved my life, because if I did not find that I would have wallowed in my own sadness and probably just jumped.
"But I found the ways to be grateful. If it gets really, really hard I walk around and say, ‘I am grateful, I am grateful,’ even though I am in a s***** mood."