Barbara Walters Apologizes to Katy Perry: "If I Made You Feel at All Unhappy…I'm Sorry"

View host didn't realize pop star was about to divorce Russell Brand when she interviewed her in 2011

By Zach Johnson Oct 01, 2013 11:49 AMTags
Katy Perry, Barbara WaltersE! Entertainment

When Katy Perry was chosen as one of Barbara Walters' 10 Most Fascinating People of 2011, it should have been an honor. Instead, the "Dark Horse" singer was petrified that the esteemed journalist would discover her marriage to Russell Brand was on the rocks.

She was right to be worried, as Brand filed for divorce just weeks after the special aired. "I shouldn't have done the interview," Perry says in the Oct. 5 issue of Billboard. "I was playing Madison Square Garden that same night, and I knew that the end of my marriage was coming. I was just exhausted and stressed."

"I'd prepped everyone that I was running late, but Barbara showed up at the original time anyway," the singer continues. "When I got there, I apologized immediately, but then she said to me, 'You know, I've only ever waited for one other person this long, and you know who that person was? Judy Garland. You know how she turned out, right?' I was like, 'Oh, snap! Yes, bitch!'"

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Walters apologized for making Perry uncomfortable during the Sept. 30, 2013, episode of The View. "Katy, if I made you feel at all unhappy, during a time when you were obviously unhappy, and I didn't know, I'm sorry," she said. "But you can't always know!"

During their previous chat (taped in November 2011), Walters brought up Brand's troubled past and asked if they had "a good marriage, a happy marriage" Perry's answer was telling. "I think it's lovely, so far," she replied.

Perry doesn't have anything bad to say about Walters, who was simply doing her job. "I think it's the coolest thing that Barbara Walters shaded me," she tells Billboard. "I just couldn't tell her as we were sitting down for a mega-interview, 'Hey, my marriage is falling apart. Give me a break.'"