--- title: Katy Perry's 'Heart Goes Out' to This Guy Who Got Catfished description: A Tennessee man thought he was in a long-distance relationship with famous pop star Perry — for six years — but it was just an imitator. canonical: https://time.com/4466670/katy-perry-catfish-imitator/ author: Raisa Bruner article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2016-08-25T20:02:41.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-04-13T07:35:53.406Z og:title: Katy Perry's 'Heart Goes Out' to This Guy Who Got Catfished og:description: He thought he was in a relationship with Perry — but it was just an imitator og:url: https://time.com/4466670/katy-perry-catfish-imitator/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blta351456f0484ee78/6988a3b5428a9e0427cd4064/katy-perry.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 3000 og:image:height: 1688 og:image:alt: 2016 Democratic National Convention - Day 4 og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Katy Perry's 'Heart Goes Out' to This Guy Who Got Catfished twitter:description: He thought he was in a relationship with Perry — but it was just an imitator twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blta351456f0484ee78/6988a3b5428a9e0427cd4064/katy-perry.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Katy Perry's 'Heart Goes Out' to the Guy Who Got Catfished By a Perry Imitator > Sponsored content. 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Every edition is assembled by TIME editors rather than generated automatically.  by [Raisa Bruner](https://time.com/author/raisa-bruner/)  ## Raisa Bruner Aug 25, 2016 8:02 PM UTC  Katy Perry performs on the fourth day of the Democratic National Convention at the Wells Fargo Center on July 28, 2016 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Katy Perry performs on the fourth day of the Democratic National Convention at the Wells Fargo Center on July 28, 2016 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Paul Morigi—Getty Images  by [Raisa Bruner](https://time.com/author/raisa-bruner/)  ## Raisa Bruner Aug 25, 2016 8:02 PM UTC It’s one thing to get hoodwinked — [“catfished,” in contemporary parlance](http://time.com/2857716/this-is-the-weirdest-catfish-case-ever/?iid=sr-link1) — into going on a date based on how someone presents themselves online. It’s another thing to fall in love with a person you believe is Katy Perry over the course of six years of incessant messaging and emailing… only for that person to very definitively _not_ be one of the [world’s biggest pop stars](http://time.com/4389205/katy-perry-is-americas-ultimate-pop-star/?iid=sr-link8). But that’s just what happened to an unlucky Tennessee man on a recent episode of MTV’s dating drama reality show _Catfish: The TV Show_. And the real Katy Perry, singer of “Rise” and “Roar” and [girlfriend to Orlando Bloom](http://time.com/4430948/dnc-katy-perry-orlando-bloom/?iid=sr-link9), has heard about the doomed, one-sided love affair. She even feels bad about the guy’s conundrum, calling it “really unfortunate” and “very sad” in an interview on SiriusXM radio’s [_The Morning Mash Up Show._](https://soundcloud.com/siriusxmmusic/katy-perry-on-the-guy-who-was-catfished-into-thinking-he-was-dating-her) “My heart goes out to him, actually” she said on the show. “Anybody who’s been fooled like that… people have dreams and people live in different parts of the world where not everything is so accessible. We live on the coasts and we get stuff in a way that some other people don’t get, and I feel bad for him. So I didn’t really like to indulge in that because my heart, like, would die.” We don’t recommend Perry [watch the episode of the show](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ijRy%5FT6XLlc), because the final moment of truth is pretty hard to watch unfold — even when you’re not Katy. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/4466670/katy-perry-catfish-imitator/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/4466670/katy-perry-catfish-imitator/"},"headline":"Katy Perry's 'Heart Goes Out' to the Guy Who Got Catfished By a Perry Imitator","datePublished":"2016-08-25T20:02:41.000Z","dateModified":"2026-04-13T07:35:53.406Z","description":"It's a jungle out there","url":"https://time.com/4466670/katy-perry-catfish-imitator/","keywords":["Newsfeed","Entertainment","celebrities","Music"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blta351456f0484ee78/6988a3b5428a9e0427cd4064/katy-perry.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Raisa Bruner","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/raisa-bruner/"}],"articleSection":"","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blta351456f0484ee78/6988a3b5428a9e0427cd4064/katy-perry.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"2016 Democratic National Convention - Day 4","caption":"2016 Democratic National Convention - Day 4","creditText":"Paul Morigi—Getty Images","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/tag/time-section-newsfeed/","name":"Newsfeed"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/4466670/katy-perry-catfish-imitator/","name":"Katy Perry's 'Heart Goes Out' to the Guy Who Got Catfished By a Perry Imitator"}}]}] ```