Katy Perry's Photo Controversy With Jake Paul Fueled MAGA Rumors (Use Google Next Time, Girl)

Katy Perry crossed paths and switched name tags with Jake Paul at the JP Morgan Tech 100 summit in Yellowstone, Montana, last week, and her PR team should be fuming. The photo sparked a Jezebel investigation into whether the "Teenage Dream" singer is full-on MAGA now, considering Paul's bromance with President Donald Trump is getting so serious that Trump recently endorsed Paul for a political office he's not even running for (thanks so much for that, Barron). "Life's been hot n cold so I switched lives with Katy Perry," Paul began the caption of a carousel on Instagram, including a photo of him and Perry sitting next to each other at a table and holding up name tags they swapped. Paul also proudly partied with Trump's "buddy" Kid Rock in a video. Plus, he bragged about going to speak "at @jdvance summit black tie event" in the caption.

Katy Perry hangs out with Jake Paul in new photo posted to social media. pic.twitter.com/lDmuai1n3W

— MR. POP (@MrPopOfficial) April 3, 2026

There's solid evidence in the world that Perry isn't a Republican or a MAGA supporter, the strongest being video of the "One That Got Away" singer and her ex, Orlando Bloom, hugging and posing with former Vice President Kamala Harris and Harris' husband, Doug Emhoff, at a 2024 campaign event. Perry also performed her underdog anthem "Dark Horse" at a Harris event. But "actions speak louder than words" is not the world's most overused phrase for no reason. And Katy Perry's actions have been raising eyebrows for years now. Her photo with Paul is just another frustrating choice we can add to the growing list of reasons she's to blame for her downfall from pop mega stardom. 

Obviously, posing with Jake Paul doesn't mean Katy Perry is going to endorse him in a future political campaign, or that she agrees with him about anything. It's possible she had no idea who he was until she sat down at the JP Morgan Tech 100 summit and agreed to the cringy gimmick the tattooed rando next to her suggested. Ivanka Trump, Jared Kushner, and Perry's buddy Jeff Bezos were reportedly also in attendance, but there are no public photos of Perry with them. They're so rich they don't need to star chase to stay relevant; they just go to space to orbit among literal stars.

One Reddit user was spot on in a thread about the photo. "Most of these interactions are purely transactional, also we've established Katy Perry is too stuck in the the oblivious millenial optimism 2010s phase to care," they wrote. "Katy has some of the worst PR instincts I've seen from a celebrity. And doesn't seem to have good a PR team to stop her from the bad optics she frequently finds herself in," someone else said.

If she really didn't know Paul, I can't blame her. She's been on a world tour, and even during breaks, how much time does she have to doom scroll? Perry's brand has never been about relating to us "normal" people. She's all about blue hair, cotton candy clouds, and camp. As long as everyone is looking at her, she doesn't care why. She's not MAGA, and she's not going to pass up the chance to sit on a golden toilet, either.