Las Vegas Weekly

March 17, 2009 · 9:36 AM

Katy Perry’s Vegas video shoot: The Palms, drag queens and Penn & Teller

By Robin Leach

Katy Perry in Agent Provocateur.

Photo: Sheryl Nields/Esquire

Pop princess Katy Perry doesn’t hide the fact that her evangelical parents have been supportive of her career even though they are preachers and, along with her 82-year-old grandmother who lives here, they blush at her “I Kissed a Girl” antics and occasional four-letter expletives!

“People can’t fathom that my pastor parents could actually support the wild-child daughter. But they’re very moderate, you know?” Katy said. Katy even sang in their church from ages 9 to 16!

But now with her new near-naked sexy photo layout in Esquire and the “Waking Up in Vegas” video she shot last week at the Palms, Katy admits that she’s pushing their limits! Katy, who was born Kathryn Hudson, shuttled between Santa Barbara and Las Vegas before hitting the stardom track.

Our Vegas DeLuxe fan Larry Edwards sent us this startling photo of Katy surrounded by celebrity impersonators, many of them drag queens, who appear in one of the video’s eyebrow-raising scenes! Rio headliner magicians Penn & Teller also were recruited for a scene outside the door to her Palms Fantasy Tower suite.

Photo: Nick San Pedro

Katy Perry and her video cast.

Katy, now on her first world tour, told Esquire that some of the inspiration for her wild outfits comes from fruit! She said: “I always wanted to suspend from the ceiling in a twirling banana. I’m going to be inside the banana. So the banana drops into a fruit bowl with the other sparkling, glorious fruit, and their tops pop off, and dancers come out and help peel me out of the banana. I have a fascination with fruit. It’s Lucille Ball meets Bob Mackie. It’s about innuendo.”

The 24-year-old also talked briefly about being single after her breakup with Gym Class Heroes rocker Travis McCoy: “I have a soft spot for musicians. If a man could ride this roller coaster with me and come out alive, then I guess we’d deserve each other’s company. But I don’t really have the right energy to be with somebody right now, because when I love somebody, I love somebody. Like, I want to marry them. I don’t date around. I haven’t been on a date. I’m not into casual anything.”

Katy put together an eclectic group for her Palms location shoot. In addition to the Strip’s female impersonators, she also hired models, showgirls, bodybuilders and muscular hunks -- and Palms owner George Maloof’s brothers Gavin and Joe, who are fans of Katy, welcome her to the resort casino in the video’s opening shot.

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