Katy Perry Regrets The Spray Tan Mistake In Her “California Gurls” Music Video

Despite wearing bedazzled Daisy Dukes and a whipped-cream-shooting bra, among other candy-covered creations, in her 2010 “California Gurls” music video, Katy Perry’s biggest regret from the shoot had nothing to do with her costumes. While breaking down everything from her viral Super Bowl performance to dressing like a cheeseburger at the Met Gala, for Vogue, the fashion-satire-loving musician revisited the costly tanning mistake that left her feeling less than “fine, fresh, fierce.” Luckily, she can laugh about the beauty gaffe now.

“Funny story behind this is that I look super tan here, right?” she said while revisiting the video shoot for a “Life in Looks” installment that Vogue published on March 24. As it turns out, she broke the cardinal rule of getting a spray tan the night before a big event, because she “just didn’t have time.” So, Perry had the bronzing solution applied mere hours before her shoot took place. There was one major problem with her timing, though.

“When you get a tan the morning of your music video, your color changes gradually throughout the day,” the American Idol judge explained. “So, I just kept on getting oranger and oranger and oranger. We had to spend so much extra money on color-grading this music video because in one part of the music video, I’m this color orange, and then I’m this color orange in the next part of the music video. Kids, just a little tip: fake tans, night before.”

After the clip for her Teenage Dream album’s lead single dropped, Perry broke down some of her most over-the-top looks, including the whipped cream and cupcake bras. The “California Gurls” video features Snoop Dogg, who has a verse on the track, as a villainous “Sugar Daddy” who sends an army of gummy bears to attack the pop star. “These whipped-cream [boobs] were in the music video because that was my only ammo,” she told MTV News in June 2010. “I had to slay those Gummi Bears that were very evil. I had to show them who was boss in Candyfornia: the Gurls. The California Gurls, of course.”

Though the cupcake bra was a bit of a hassle, she and stylist Johnny Wujek had a blast creating the looks. “I will tell you that those cupcake-bra boobies, they were a little bit heavy and they were interesting,” Perry added. “It was really fun making these costumes. They’re all one-of-a-kind, and I love the Bettie Page moment in the red and the whipped-cream cans.”

The tanning debacle isn’t the only career regret Perry has copped to recently. The singer revealed in January that she once passed on the opportunity to work with Billie Eilish on her “Ocean Eyes” track. “She was just a blonde girl and I was like, ‘Meh boring,’” Perry admitted to an audience of fans in a video that 102.7 KIIS-FM shared on Jan. 27, without revealing the extent to which she would have worked with Eilish. “Big mistake. Huge mistake. Don’t let this hit the internet.”

Live and learn.