Katy Perry’s dad preaches that she’s a “devil child”

Katy Perry once tried to achieve fame as a Christian singer, but she’d always been attracted to mainstream pop and alternative, even though she was forbidden to listen to it as a child.

In her documentary Part of Me, Katy recounts how wonderful it felt to watch MTV at her friends house. Her parents, who are evangelical preachers, never gave up their views about the dangers of pop music and secular culture in general, and it’s always been a point of strain in the family.

In a twist of irony, her parents were never more successful in their evangelical endeavors than when their daughter became an international superstar and often use her as part of their sermon, saying things like “I’m sure Katy is trending on the internet just to get you to church tonight.”

Now The Sun reports that her father Keith Hudson is preaching that Katy is a “devil child” who needs healing.

At a recent sermon in Santa Fe Springs, California, where Keith and Mary asked for “not one or two dollars, but 20s” so they could go to Switzerland, preached:

“They ask how can I preach if I produce a girl who sang about kissing another girl? I was at a concert of Katy’s where there were 20,000. I’m watching this generation and they were going at it. It almost looked like church. I stood there and wept and kept on weeping and weeping. They’re loving and worshipping the wrong thing.”

Even though Katy has a different view of religion, she still believes in God.” I don’t go to one particular church,” Katy said in a 2012 interview. “I’m open to the idea. It’s just I haven’t been able to in the past few years. But you know what? God is still inside of me and I still talk to Him every day.”

UPDATE: Katy talks about God often on the 2013 album PRISM. While promoting the album in W Magazine, Katy spoke more about her spiritual ideas. “I try and keep my connection with the G-O-D or with a power that’s bigger than me,” she said. “It’s important—otherwise, you don’t have any kind of accountability. If you think, Hey, at the end of it all I am just going to be dust, or I have no soul or whatever, why not just be a menace to society? For me, accountability works.”