Katy Perry slams her upbringing: 'I didn't have a childhood'

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Katy Perry has brought her parents, Mary Perry Hudson and Keith Hudson, to Hollywood events.

You'll have to forgive Katy Perry if she's been a little eccentric in her 20s.

"I didn't have a childhood," she told Vanity Fair's Lisa Robinson.

In an interview for the June issue, Perry detailed her strict Christian upbringing, where she couldn't use the word "devil" in a secular context and couldn't purchase non-religious music. Her mother would only read to her from the Bible.

"Growing up, seeing Planned Parenthood, it was considered like the abortion clinic," the singer said. "I was always scared I was going to get bombed when I was there."

"I didn't know it was more than that, that it was for women and their needs," she explained. "I didn't have insurance, so I went there and I learned about birth control."

Perry's inquisitive nature is what led her to look outside her religion for information.

"I have always been the kid who's asked 'Why?'" she said. "In my faith, you're just supposed to have faith. But I was always like ? 'why?'"

The frank talk about Perry's pre-fame years comes amidst rumors her mother, an evangelical minister, is planning a potentially damning book about how her sometimes controversial career affected the ministry.

Still, the 26-year-old suggested she and her parents are on good terms.

"I think sometimes when children grow up, their parents grow up," she said. "Mine grew up with me."

"We coexist. I don't try to change them anymore, and I don't think they try to change me," she continued. "We agree to disagree."

"They're excited about [my success]" Perry insisted. "They're happy that things are going well for their three children and that they're not on drugs. Or in prison."

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Indeed, Perry's mom told the magazine that she knew her daughter would take this path.

"The Lord told us when I was pregnant with her that she would do this," Mary Perry Hudson said.

Perry's "very non-accepting family" has made her the opposite, the "E.T." songstress said. She cited husband Russell Brand's practice of Hinduism as an example.

"He meditates in the morning and the evening; I'm starting to do it more because it really centers me," she said. "[But] I just let him be him, and he lets me be me."

"At this point, I'm just kind of a drifter," Perry admitted. "I'm open to possibility ?."

"My sponge is so big and wide and I'm soaking everything up and my mind has been radically expanded," she added. "Just being around different cultures and people and their opinions and perspectives. Just looking into the sky."

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