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Katy Perry's flick knife photo provokes a storm
By Georgina Littlejohn, London Lite Last updated at 12:24pm on 22.10.08The father of murdered schoolboy Damilola Taylor has reacted in fury to pictures of singer Katy Perry posing with a knife.
Cutting edge? The Katy Perry picture that has sparked protest
Publicity photos of the I Kissed A Girl star holding a blade leaked on to the internet last night, hours after Army cadet Joey Lappin, 16, became the latest teenager to be stabbed to death. He was killed by a Liverpool gang.
Richard Taylor, whose son was aged 10 when he was fatally wounded on a Peckham housing estate in 2000, said Perry was "out of her mind".
Mr Taylor, an ardent anti-knife campaigner, added: "There is nothing glamorous about knives - they wreck families. Any youngsters seeing her will think it is OK to carry a blade."
He was backed by actress Brooke Kinsella, whose 16-year-old brother Ben was stabbed to death in June. She said: "Celebrities are role models so their management and record label should think about the consequences."
The snap - see above - shows a dishevelled Perry, 23, holding a flick knife. A source at the photo shoot, for the Californian's debut album One Of The Boys, said: "The picture was to give Katy more of a sexy, harder edge."
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Reader views (12)
what's the problem with katy holding a knife??.. if u guys have a phobia or whatever fear abt knives.. juz don't bother looking at those type of pictures ok??.. and for heaven's sake what's the problem with a knife.. u juz use it to cut carrots.. ok??
- Nick, singapore
I don't see what the big deal is about all she's doing is holding a knife wow haven't you got better things to do than have a hissy fit over this.
- Katie, Stoke, UK.
Seems to have given her a lot of free publicity though eh? Hmmmmm
- Cheryl Fernandez, London, UK
Hardly surprising, given this rather bland invidual's complete lack of originality and need to fall back on tired old cliches (girls kissing girls - for goodness sake, it's 2008 not 1908...) to get attention.
Being obnoxiously provocative will never make up for being a talent vacuum.
- Helen, London, UK
Its a picture of a girl holding a knife, so what. The people that were stabbed has nothing to do with this photo let alone the kid was a army cadet in training.. Hmm do i sense a little male anger going on here.
- Jacob, UK
"Anti-knife?" Are you people kidding? Now I know the "anti-gun" lobby in the US is stupid. Obviously if you don't have guns, you'll have knives, and if you don't have knives, you'll be using bats, or forks, or throwing people in the Thames with toasters and hairdryers tied to their backs.
Can't you clods figure out that criminal behavior is the problem, not guns, knives, or any other kind of object?
- Frank, San Jose, USA
As a sixteen year old, even I think that posing with a knife is the most STUPID thing you could do when your fan base is self-conscious, awkward, vulnerable, often socially uncomfortable and often lead easily to persuasion. I don't know if she's published an apology, but she should. She can't just let it blow over. She shouldn't be allowed to let it blow over.
- Angelika, Cambridge, United Kingdom
That is disgraceful - how stupid and ignorant are these people? Surely someone at the photo shoot would have had 1 brain cell enough to know that this was wrong.
- Sarah, UK
This extraordinarily stupid nobody must be completely disconnected from reality to strike a pose like that.
- James, London
I had thought from watching Katy Perry in the past that she was quite a bright girl, able to think for herself...clearly I was mistaken and she's just as useless and "created" as all the rest of the little teeny bopper singers. Shame on her.
- Louise, Essex
It shouldn't surprise anyone that a 'pop singer' who has previously used controversy to get attention and boost sales, does it again. It is truly pathetic, and the sooner the public realise they are being treated like idiots, the sooner people like this will disappear off our screens and radios.
- Colin, London
"The picture was to give Katy more of a sexy, harder edge."
How sad it is that people actually believe posing with a knife will accomplish this...on the contrary, it just makes her look rather silly!
- Tina, London
