Katy Perry is embracing her rebirth into the celebrity realm with faith and fervour. In a new feature with The New York Times, published on Wednesday, the outspoken pop star denounced the ways in which validation so often drives the entertainment industry. “All the awards shows are fake, and all the awards that I’ve won are fake,” she said. “They’re constructs.” Over the years, Perry has amassed an impressive number of awards, including five American Music Awards, five Billboard Music Awards, five MTV Video Music Awards, and 14 People’s Choice Awards, among many others. Perry recently released her latest album ‘Witness’, and with it, has been moving toward what she has previously referred to as a more “socially conscious” kind of pop. But despite her shift away from her sugary hits of yesteryear, Perry told The Times that she’s not denying any of her Technicolor past self. “I didn’t kill her,” she said of the “Teenage Dream”-era Perry, “because I love her, and she is exactly what I had to do then. And I’m not a con artist, I didn’t con people, like, that was just me. And this is me now.” The “Swish Swish” singer further added that part of the reason why she had “oversexualised” herself in previous iterations of her public image was because she was, in reality, always “scared of intimacy.” The Perry that is fully present and awake now, she said, is working to confront those issues. “It’s a departure, and it’s a necessary evolution that I have to take,” she said. “And I know that sometimes it feels publicly like I’m dragging cement blocks, but like, the pyramids were made out of cement blocks – or not cement. But do you know what I’m trying to say? I’m going to get there.”