Katy Perry Gets Acupuncture Pins Stuck in Her Face in New ‘Never Really Over’ Music Video

On Friday, May 31, Katy Perry marked the return to her first solo single since 2017, returning with the new song, “Never Really Over.”

The accompanying music video is a ’70s-inspired spectacle, with the singer traveling to a throwback compound promoting wellness, where she and a group of other visitors do yoga together, dance in a field, sit around a fire and participate in various healing rituals.

At one point Perry undergoes an acupuncture treatment, with red needles with glowing hearts on the ends made to look as if they’re stuck into the singer’s face. According to Perry, the needles were real, though the glowing hearts were an added visual effect.

Perry also participates in a real-deal cupping treatment, with the resulting marks shaped like hearts, and tends to a heart-shaped fruit inside a bottle that she later drinks out of.

“I would say that (in) this video, things that I’m touching on are kind of (out of) a time like the age of Aquarius, new age, esoteric, California, healing, hippie, medicinal — all of those key words!” Perry told fans at YouTube’s Los Angeles headquarters Wednesday night, via Variety.

“I’m not sure that cupping has ever been in a music video,” she said. “Or facial acupuncture.”

The idea of treatment is addressed in the song when Perry sings, “I guess I could try hypnotherapy / I gotta rewire this brain / ‘Cause I can’t even go on the internet / Without even checking your name,” with the second line something the 34-year-old admitted to doing quite often in the past.

“If you looked up my apps, looking up what I look at — not anymore, but in the past — it was a disaster,” she said. “And I know you all understand that. You want to show someone something you saw on Instagram, but you’re like, ‘I’ve got to delete all these first, before I hand my phone over.’”

“Never Really Over” is produced by Zedd and finds Perry discussing an on-and-off relationship, though the singer explained that the song, an upbeat electronic anthem, is ultimately about loving yourself.

“It’s really just a song about the choices we have in life; to take steps forward or backwards,” she said. “And how your mind is extremely powerful and how if you don’t take those steps forward, as hard as they may be, you can take a step backwards into a loop that you don’t love, so it’s kind of about that.”

Perry continued, “It’s also about acceptance, and the yin-yang of how you can’t ever get rid of the dark, but you can accept that maybe it was a lesson for you to get to the light.”

Photo Credit: YouTube / Katy Perry