Katy Perry's Boldest Wigs & Hairstyles Over The Years

Singer Katy Perry rocketed to stardom with her hit song "I Kissed a Girl" in 2008. While Perry has said she'd make some changes to her first major hit, our guess is that she wouldn't change the worldwide fame and fortune it helped launch. As of writing, Perry has had nine number one Billboard hits, won several VMA awards, and she has received more than a dozen Grammy nominations (though she has yet to win one). She's gone on worldwide tours, and some have called her 2015 Super Bowl performance one of the best.

Beyond her music, Perry has made headlines for her fashion sense and style. It hasn't always been the most complimentary coverage. Her Met Gala outfits, for example, have missed the mark more than once. The one thing that does seem consistent with Perry is that you never quite know what you're going to get from her, especially when it comes to her hair. 

Perry started dying her black when she was 15 after dying her hair blond to imitate Madonna from "Who's That Girl" didn't work for her, according to Vogue. She's largely kept the dark hair during her pop career, but she's also made it clear that she's not afraid to change things up. From her controversial pixie cut post-breakup to over-the-top colorful wigs in just about every color of the rainbow, here are some of Perry's most outrageous and unexpected hair styles. 

One of Katy Perry's most popular and enduring albums is "Teenage Dream." Released in 2010, it had hits like "California Gurls" and "Firework," and it also brought us into her colorful hair era, particularly Perry's blue hair look that fans envied.

She wore a bright blue wig to the 2010 MTV Movie Awards, helping to establish her as a pop artist who wants to have fun with a bubbly aesthetic. Perry also donned a blue wig for a part of her set on the 2012 "California Dreams" tour and for some of the music video for "California Gurls."

Katy Perry seemed to love the blue look from her wigs so much that it looks like she actually dyed her hair blue for a time. You can see her with a sleek teal blue bob at an event in Las Vegas in January 2012 with what look to be her natural roots growing out. Granted, when it comes to Perry, you may never know for sure if it's her real hair or a wig, but this certainly looks like it's her hair.

Katy Perry went with pink hair for a number of high profile events in 2011, as well as for the art for her single "The One That Got Away." That included her bubblegum pink curly 'do for the MTV Video Music Awards in August 2011; she won video of the year for "Firework" that year.

When she walked the red carpet for the event, she accessorized her pink hair with some flowers tucked behind her ear and a parasol, but when Perry accepted the award for video of the year, she'd somewhat inexplicably, but memorably, switched to wearing a giant yellow cube on her pink tresses. A few months later, she kept the pink trend going (minus the cube) with a heavy bang at the MTV Europe Music Awards.

Katy Perry has undergone a stunning transformation from when she was starting out as a teenage gospel singer and going by the name Katy Hudson — her birth name was Katheryn Hudson. When it came to her hair, no transformation was perhaps quite so dramatic as when she got a super short pixie cut in 2017. It was after she and Orlando Bloom broke up for the first time; they got back together in 2018, engaged in 2019, and then split for good in 2025. Perry never said directly that her haircut had anything to do with the breakup. Instead, on an episode of "The Ellen Show," she said that it was because she'd dyed her hair too blond and it was falling out. This was confirmed by hairstylist Justin Anderson on an episode of the podcast "Let's Be Honest" with Kristin Cavallari.

In a 2019 episode of "The Therapist," in a therapy session shared with the world, Perry gave some insight into why she changed her look. "People talk about my hair, right?" Perry said. "And they don't like it, or they wish that it was longer. And I so badly want to be Katheryn Hudson that I don't even want to look like Katy Perry anymore sometimes."

She referenced the controversial haircut years later. In a post on X from 2020, Perry shared a photo of herself with bombshell blond locks and full glam makeup and wrote, "if you don't love me at my pixie cut then you don't deserve me at my Goddess glow."

Katy Perry first went with purple hair with a vibrant wig during her "Teenage Dream" era. She's come back to purple a number of times, like for the start of the European leg of her "Witness" tour in 2018. She dyed her short hair a bright purple with the help of hairstylist Rick Henry. Henry reportedly used Joico's Color Butter in Purple, a semi-permanent color that would last 10 shampoos, to bring Perry's purple locks to life, per People.

Katy Perry's also gone with a moodier, deeper purple, like at the Billboard Music Awards in May 2012 where she had purple ombre hair with black roots, as seen above-left. She went with a similar color profile the next month for the premiere of "Katy Perry: Part of Me," picture in the above-right snapshot. She mixed the vibrant hair color with perfectly coiffed curls and stunning makeup, including a red lip that contrasted with her dark tresses in the best way.

There's just about no shade of the rainbow that Katy Perry hasn't experimented with when it comes to her hair, including green. It was one of the featured colors during Perry's "Prismatic" tour, and one of many colored wigs she wore for the show. She continued with the green hair look for the premiere of "Katy Perry: The Prismatic World Tour" in March 2015. "I actually really liked my green phase for a long time," Perry said at the screening, per People.

When Katy Perry started as a judge on "American Idol," she went all in on the wigs and themes for the show. For Disney week one year, she went as Snow White complete with a black bob and a red headband, and another year, she was Ursula, with a wild blond wig and purple makeup. One of her most outrageous hair moments on the show came during the 2019 finale of the show for her performance of "Con Calma" with Daddy Yankee. She wore a truly massive blond wig, which she couldn't actually walk around in. Hairstylist Iggy Rosales helped create the wig, which measured 5 feet, 5 inches tall and 6 feet wide. Perry is 5 feet, 7.5 inches tall; this thing was huge!

Rosales explained the story behind the look to Paper: "Neon, glam, blonde, surreal — something to make the original queen Diana Ross proud. With something of this scale, it becomes less of a hairstyle and more of a sculpture."

Perry shared a photo from before the show on Instagram, and said, "Tonight's #AmericanIdol finale is not just WIG – it's 76 wigs (and a little bit of fringe)." Rosales said that he had just five days to create the look, and it involved his team buying as many blond wigs in Los Angeles that they could find. The wig was also decorated with glittery martini glasses and chiles, and we can't imagine Perry coming up with anything more over-the-top than this.