Katheryn Elizabeth Hudson (born October 25, 1984), known professionally as Katy Perry, is an American singer, songwriter, and television judge. After singing in church during her childhood, she pursued a career in gospel music as a teenager.
Perry signed with Red Hill Records and released her debut studio album Katy Hudson under her birth name in 2001, which was commercially unsuccessful. She moved to Los Angeles the following year to venture into secular music after Red Hill ceased operations and she subsequently began working with producers Glen Ballard, Dr. Luke, and Max Martin.
After adopting the stage name Katy Perry and being dropped by The Island Def Jam Music Group and Columbia Records, she signed a recording contract with Capitol Records in April 2007.
Long Island-native Christian Guardino struck a major chord with the judges on ABC’s “American Idol,” earning him a spot among the show’s top 24 contestants — and a trip to Hawaii to compete at Disney’s Aulani resort.
Guardino, 22, was born with a rare condition that causes blindness, but he beat the odds and is now on the road making a name for himself on one of the industry’s biggest stages — which he told The Post’s Angela Barbuti is “so exciting — but it’s craziness.” Can you explain the condition you had as a kid? I was born with a rare disorder called Leber congenital amaurosis, but we call it LCA.
It’s a disorder that causes a gene that’s missing in your eye, because if the gene isn’t there, it’s not producing proteins that your cells need to live, so they all start to die off and then it causes inevitable blindness.
But when I was 13 years old, I received an experimental gene therapy and a few years ago, it got approved by the FDA. And when I got the treatment, it was experimental and it was in hopes just to stop that inevitable blindness, but for me, it’s done so much more.
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