--- title: Katy Perry Pulls Prank at Museum description: Katy Perry just pulled the ultimate prank and completely freaked out visitors to The Whitney canonical: https://time.com/4784928/katy-perry-prank/ author: Melissa Locker article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2017-05-18T21:03:12.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-04-13T07:43:46.978Z og:title: Katy Perry Just Freaked Out Innocent People With This Prank og:description: Perry completely freaked out visitors to The Whitney's Biennial og:url: https://time.com/4784928/katy-perry-prank/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltf83a7553ddd47636/6988cdf58fd2ee5f37357200/katy.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1461 og:image:height: 822 og:image:alt: Katy og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Katy Perry Just Freaked Out Innocent People With This Prank twitter:description: Perry completely freaked out visitors to The Whitney's Biennial twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltf83a7553ddd47636/6988cdf58fd2ee5f37357200/katy.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Katy Perry Just Completely Freaked Out Innocent People With This Art Prank > Sponsored content. 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Every edition is assembled by TIME editors rather than generated automatically. by [Melissa Locker](https://time.com/author/melissa-locker/) ## Melissa Locker May 18, 2017 9:03 PM UTC  by [Melissa Locker](https://time.com/author/melissa-locker/) ## Melissa Locker May 18, 2017 9:03 PM UTC Brad Pitt, George Clooney, [Ellen DeGeneres](http://time.com/4339921/ellen-degeneres-pranks-scares-drake/?iid=sr-link8), and [Jimmy Kimmel](http://time.com/4554642/jimmy-kimmel-halloween-candy-kids-prank-2016/?iid=sr-link6) may be known as the ultimate [pranksters](http://time.com/4690140/emma-watson-ellen-prank-video/?iid=sr-link3), but Katy Perry may be giving them a run for their money. The pop star decided to have a little fun with visitors at New York’s The Whitney museum by quite literally immersing herself in the art. For the prank, she transformed the cover art from new single “Bon Appetit” into a three-dimensional sculpture, serving up her own head on a platter surrounded by fruit and completely scaring the tuna salad out of innocent museum-goers. The ruse was apparently the brainchild of Perry and [Vanity Fair’s](http://www.vanityfair.com/style/2017/05/katy-perry-museum-prank) man-about-town Derek Blasberg, who presented the museum with the reasonable sounding ploy that Santa Barbara-based artist Katheryn Hudson (Katy’s birth name) was doing “a site-specific, one-day-only installation” and Blasberg would document their responses. The results were hilarious with Perry’s seemingly disembodied head popping to life to make small talk with museum-goers. The visitors were startled, but Perry’s prank fits right in with much of the art on display at The Whitney’s Biennial and that pineapple that was [accidentally turned into fine art. ](http://time.com/4772143/pineapple-art-prank/?iid=sr-link4) It’s impressive that Perry found time for the stunt, because she just announced she would be a judge on ABC’s rebooted _American Idol_ and releasing a new album, _Witness,_ on June 9 with an accompanying world tour. \[H/T [Vanity Fair](http://www.vanityfair.com/style/2017/05/katy-perry-museum-prank)\] ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/4784928/katy-perry-prank/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/4784928/katy-perry-prank/"},"headline":"Katy Perry Just Completely Freaked Out Innocent People With This Art Prank","datePublished":"2017-05-18T21:03:12.000Z","dateModified":"2026-04-13T07:43:46.978Z","description":"She completely freaked out visitors to The Whitney museum","url":"https://time.com/4784928/katy-perry-prank/","keywords":["Newsfeed","celebrities","Katy Perry","Art","Pranks"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltf83a7553ddd47636/6988cdf58fd2ee5f37357200/katy.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Melissa Locker","jobTitle":"","url":"https://time.com/author/melissa-locker/"}],"articleSection":"","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltf83a7553ddd47636/6988cdf58fd2ee5f37357200/katy.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"Katy","caption":"","creditText":"","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/4784928/katy-perry-prank/","name":"Katy Perry Just Completely Freaked Out Innocent People With This Art Prank"}}]}] ```