American Music Awards 2020: Katy Perry Delights With Dressed-Down First Performance Since Giving Birth

About three months after giving birth to her first child with fiance, Orlando Bloom, Katy Perry teamed up with Darius Rucker for a special performance during the American Music Awards on Sunday night. Making it even more memorable for Perry was that it marked her return to the stage after welcoming her daughter into the world near the end of the summer.

The two got together on a socially-distant side stage to perform her new version of “Only Love,” a song she dedicated to her father ahead of the performance. Viewers were blown away by the vocal range displayed by the American Idol judge. One user wrote on Twitter, “Katy Perry serving pure vocals with ‘Only Love’ performance for the first time at the AMAs!” Another fan of hers shot down any haters who may have felt she lost a step after becoming a mother, “Katy Perry can sing, now everyone can stop lying about her voice being weak.” The performance was Perry’s one big moment during the event as she, nor her singing mate Rucker, were nominated for any awards.

While 2020 has been a year to forget for many across the country, Perry has enjoyed quite a successful year. To serve as a judge on the ABC singing competition and being renewed for another season, Perry also dropped her newest album a few days after giving birth. Entitled “Smile,” it marked the sixth studio album she has put out and the first since she released “Witness” in 2017. Ahead of the album’s release, Perry had two singles in “Daisies” and the title track. Two of her standalone singles from 2019, “Never Really Over” and “Harleys in Hawaii,” also are on the album. Perry saw the album debut at No. 5 on the Billboard 200 chart, giving her five albums that reached in the top 10.

Outside of her professional career, nothing has been as special, of course, as her becoming a first-time mother. In a statement she and Bloom released through UNICEF after welcoming their child into the world, the two said they “are floating with and wonder” after the exciting moment. The two met in 2016 and got engaged on Valentine’s Day in 2019 as the two are set to wed one another, marking their second marriage each.