Katy Perry Speaks to ‘Rolling Stone’ About Babies, Being Teased and More

Katy Perry makes her third appearance on Rolling Stone‘s cover this Friday and no topic is off-limits, from her thoughts on babies and whether or not she wants to have one, to what her days back in school were like (hint: not awesome) and more.

On catching major heat for alleged cultural insensitivity (remember those big-bootied mummies that danced on her tour and how she dressed up as a geisha at the American Music Awards?):

“As far as the mummy thing, I based it on plastic surgery,” she says. “Look at someone like Kim Kardashian or Ice-T’s wife, Coco. Those girls aren’t African-American. But it’s actually a representation of our culture wanting to be plastic, and that’s why there’s bandages and it’s mummies. I thought that would really correlate well together… It came from an honest place. If there was any inkling of anything bad, then it wouldn’t be there, because I’m very sensitive to people.”

On the changing rules and increasing uncoolness of “cultural appropriation”:

“I guess I’ll just stick to baseball and hot dogs, and that’s it,” she says. “I know that’s a quote that’s gonna come to f**k me in the ass, but can’t you appreciate a culture? I guess, like, everybody has to stay in their lane? I don’t know.”

On having a baby:

“I want to be doing that in the right time,” she says. “And that’s not in the next two years, you know? Maybe it’s in a five-year plan, but I need to really be able to focus 100 percent of my attention on it. I don’t really want to take the child on tour. Not until, like, birth through five is over.” And there doesn’t necessarily have to be a man in the picture, she adds, mentioning her friends Neil Patrick Harris and David Burtka. “I don’t need a dude. I mean, Neil and David, their twins are beautiful. It’s 2014! We are living in the future; we don’t need anything. I don’t think I’ll have to, but we’ll see. I’m not anti-men. I love men. But there is an option if someone doesn’t present himself.”

On being teased in school:

“I’m the class clown’s assistant,” she says. “That’s what I was in high school. I mean, they called me ‘over-the-shoulder boulder holder,’ and I wasn’t that cute. I looked like a square – a rectangle, actually – because I was going through my teenage awkward phase.”

Also featured in the August issue of the mag are Obama spokesperson Reid Cherlin speaking about the bad blood between the White House and reporters, David Fricke in conversation with Tom Petty, Sabrina Rubin Erderly on how CeCe McDonald became a trans hero after facing murder charges for defending herself, plus Jon Dolan on Spoon’s new album, along with interviews with “Weird Al” Yankovic, Hayley Williams and more.

Make sure to grab the new issue of Rolling Stone, on stands and in stores this Friday, August 1st.

Photo Credit: Peggy Sirota/Rolling Stone