Why Russell Brand Felt “Inadequate” When He Married Ex Katy Perry

Video of Katy Perry rocking out and stage diving at a Relient K show in the early '00s—when she dated the band's frontman Matt Thiesen—made the rounds about 10 years later.

Thiessen mentioned Katy Perry in an interview with Songfacts.com in 2012 and the interviewer seemed taken aback, asking, "You're a friend of Katy Perry's?"

"I used to date her back in the day for a couple of years. But we're still really good friends," Thiessen said. He added, "We're not too close, but yeah, she's a great person."

Perry was barely 21 when she started dating Johnny Lewis—who would go on to star in Sons of Anarchy but whose life was simultaneously unraveling. Lewis died in a freak occurrence in 2012, either falling off or jumping off the roof of the home where he'd been renting a room after beating his 81-year-old landlady to death.

"It wasn't a secret that Johnny had issues he was dealing with," a source who worked on SOA told E! News at the time. "No one could have expected it would end so tragically, though. Everyone is in shock."

Though everyone would assume in the moment that 2010's "Circle the Drain" was about Travis McCoy, after Lewis died a source told Us Weekly that Perry's relationship with the actor also played into the song, which is about only being able to stick around to watch and try to help for so long if the one you love is intent on destroying himself.

"He was in trouble then and she couldn't help him," the source said. "A lot of her songs were partially inspired by him. I know 'The One That Got Away' and 'Circle the Drain' are partly about him, as well as Travis. But she was young and it was a time in her life she cherishes...They had good times. It's really sad. She could never help him and couldn't [let herself] go in that direction."

When Perry first burst onto the scene with "I Kissed a Girl" in 2008 she had been dating Gym Class Heroes singer Travis McCoy for over a year after appearing in the band's "Cupid's Chokehold" video, but they split up that December. McCoy, who had spent time in rehab that year for prescription drug addiction, announced the news on his blog on New Year's Eve with lyrics borrowed from Main Source's "Kickin at the Front Door"—all about a volatile relationship that's great when the couple isn't arguing, which is never. (So, "Hot n Cold"...)

"When you break up with someone, you move on," Perry reportedly told an audience at the Hotel Cafe during an intimate performance a couple weeks later. "You don't really want to move on…but you have to because they don't give you any choice. But I'm over it!"

When "Circle the Drain" leaked before Teenage Dream came out in 2010, everyone assumed it was about McCoy, about which he told MTV News: "I heard she put out a song that's about me, or about some old habits or whatever...I look at it like this: I'm just stoked that she finally has a song with some substance on her record. Good job."

But apparently time heals some wounds, because McCoy reportedly told London's Mirror in 2012 after Perry's divorce that she was "there for me through my hard times when things were really bad. Life goes on. I have regrets about the way we ended. But there are no grudges any more between us. I'll always be there for her, she knows that."

After she and Benji Madden partied together on Valentine's Day night in 2009, word got around that the newly single Perry was dating the Good Charlotte rocker.

"oh kittens!" she blogged about the rumors. "It's two pseudo famous people sitting next to each other...doesn't mean we were bumping uglies!"

Not long after, Perry "might have skated on the line of dating" with Josh Groban. (That's according to the "You Raise Me Up" singer himself in 2013.)

Perry dated Maroon 5 guitarist James Valentine—according to Truth & Salvage Co. frontman Tim Jones. Talking to Blast Magazine in 2010, Jones revealed that Perry helped write the lyrics for his band's song "Old Piano," off of their self-titled 2010 LP. 

"She was dating my friend, James Valentine, who plays guitar in Maroon 5," Jones said. "We were up at his house one night, and she was asleep. He had a piano there, and it was late. I started playing and working on a song." At some point, she rolled over, asked what they were up to, sang a few words back to him, and went back to sleep."

As we all know now, this didn't turn out well.

Russell Brand proposed while they were on holiday in India just a few months after meeting Perry in 2009. They returned to India to marry on Oct. 23, 2010, in a traditional Hindu ceremony in the middle of a tiger park.

By December 2011, Brand had informed Perry via text that he wanted a divorce. Perry shared vulnerable moments in midst of their split in the concert documentary Katy Perry: Part of Me, and in 2013 Prism songs "Ghost" and "By the Grace of God" detailed the pain.

“What can I tell you is, when I was married to Katy Perry, she's like a­—not entirely normal, because she's an extraordinary, massive star­—but she's not weird or off key,” Brand said during an April 2025 episode of his podcast. “And wasn't involved in anything nefarious, as far as I could tell.”

He continued, “The reasons that a marriage didn't work are the normal human reasons marriages don't work, and I have nothing but respect for her.”

Florence + the Machine guitarist Robert Ackroyd was the object of Perry's affection at Coachella in April 2012 as she proceeded to sow her oats following her divorce.

She told USA Today that summer that she wasn't looking for a relationship anytime soon, saying her dalliance with Ackroyd was "not even appropriate to label. There are times I go out and meet people and flirt, but it's not really appropriate to have anything serious."

Moreover, "I have a second chance on life. To get maybe a better situation. For me, right now, I'm totally not looking. I'm just looking to heal. And I'm on that path. I'm not down on love."

No, she was not down on love! Instead, Perry fell hard and fast for John Mayer and they embarked on a roller coaster relationship that stopped and started multiple times over the course of four years.

She wrote "Unconditionally" after their March 2013 breakup. 

"He pulled away. That was a big hello for me," she told Elle U.K. "I realized I could lose the person I loved and I had to deal with some things, issues I think a lot of women have. You can be strong in one aspect of your life but submissive in another. In relationships, it was hard for me to speak up and set boundaries. I think a lot of that was to do with the fear of loss."

Then, when GQ caught up with her at the end of 2013, they were together again and Perry was "having a wonderful experience with a wonderful guy. There's no rush."

Longtime pals via mutual friend Kristen Stewart, Perry was rumored to be dating Robert Pattinson at one point after she and Mayer first broke up in March 2013, but they were really just friends.

"I sent [Kristen] a text message saying, 'I know you've seen all this stuff, but you know I would never disrespect you. I'm not that person,'" Perry told Elle UK. "'I'm just trying to be a friend to him but it is unfortunate that I do have a set of tits."'

Well, who hasn't been linked to Jared Leto after sitting next to him?

After her and Mayer's second breakup of 2013, Perry and Leto were at Coachella and he was rumored to have been angling for a date, or at least more face time, with the pop star.

Neither Perry nor Diplo (real name Thomas Wesley Pentz) ever confirmed being more than friends, but they spent a lot of cozy-looking time together in 2014 after she and Mayer had broken up again. Either way, they were close enough for the DJ-producer to raise a lot of Swifty hackles with a tweet about then-rumored-frenemy Taylor Swift's lack of a booty.

He and Swift seemingly made up a few months later at the Grammys.

John Mayer

Mayer just kept coming around, until they finally seemed to part ways for good in 2015.

There was speculation that several tunes on 2017's Witness, including the title track and "Miss You More," boasted a little Mayer inspiration.

Besides, Mayer had just released "Still Feel Like Your Man," which he acknowledged was inspired by Perry, that April, so there's no statute of limitations on memories.

Perry and Orlando Bloom hit it off at a 2016 Golden Globes after party and took it from there, traveling to Hawaii, Italy, the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia and more.

The hot-and-heavy relationship seemed to have run its course, however, by early 2017. Their reps explained the split as the two taking "respectful, loving space" from each other—which indeed is far better than antagonistic, empty dumping via text.

"Katy pulled the plug," a source explained to E! News afterward. "It was a few events that happened over the past few months. They both still love each other very much, though, and getting back together could happen once they have some space."

They rebooted their relationship months later and, in 2019, Perry captioned a photo of her engagement ring, "Full bloom."

The couple welcomed daughter Daisy Dove in 2020 but confirmed their breakup in July 2025, the pair's reps saying they had been "shifting their relationship over the past many months to focus on coparenting."