Katy Perry may have brought her 91-year-old grandmother with her to the Billboard Music Awards last night, but she didn't hold anything back.
It was a big night for Perry, who picked up the Spotlight Award for matching Michael Jackson's record of five No. 1 singles on the Billboard charts from a single album. The 27-year-old also debuted her new single, "Wide Awake," live on the BBMA stage, which appears to specifically address her recent divorce from comedian Russell Brand.
The track was written for her upcoming 3-D movie, "Katy Perry: Part of Me," and the performance spilled the contents of her broken heart onto the stage.
"I'm wide awake. I was in the dark, I was falling hard with an open heart. How did I read the stars so wrong. I was dreaming for so long. I wish I knew then what I know now. I wouldn't dive in, I wouldn't bow down," she sings.
But the song isn't about the singer wallowing in heartbreak, as time does heal all wounds. "Not losing any sleep, I picked up every piece and landed on my feet. Need nothing to complete myself. I am born again, outta the lion's den. I don't have to pretend. The story's over now, the end."
If the song is as autobiographical as it sounds, Perry certainly has picked up the pieces and moved on. At the recent Coachella Music Festival, the singer was spotted getting cozy with Florence and the Machine guitarist Robert Ackroyd.
"Wide Awake" marks Perry's first time addressing the divorce in song. In February, Perry debuted "Part of Me" at the Grammy Awards, and although it was initially believed to be written about Brand, mostly due to references about keeping a diamond ring, the song was actually written years earlier.
Later, the singer admitted she was told to lie about the song's origin, in an attempt to make it a bigger hit.
"Some people that I work with were like 'You should say you wrote it a couple weeks ago,'" Perry told MTV News of the song. "I'm like, 'I'm not a douchebag.' I'm going to tell the truth."
"It feels like my life plays out with these songs," she said. "I feel like I'm in some kind of weird 'Truman Show' where I'm like, 'Why is this single appropriate now and it wouldn't have been appropriate then?' It's just so crazy."
