She’s got the eye of the tiger, and that’s why Katy Perry‘s “Roar” music video has skyrocketed to 4 billion YouTube views, marking the most of any female artist on the platform.
In the 2013 clip, Perry embarks on an animal-filled frolic through the jungle in which the pop star befriends a monkey, showers with the assistance of an elephant, brushes a crocodile’s teeth and “roars” a tiger into submission. “I got the eye of the tiger, a fighter/ Dancing through the fire/ ‘Cause I am a champion, and you’re gonna hear me roar,” she belts in the chorus of her empowering hit.
Upon its release in 2013, the song has been equally successful on the Billboard charts. Released in 2013 as a single from Prism, “Roar” spent two weeks at No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 — one of nine No. 1 hits she has amassed in her career. Prism, which featured additional hits “Dark Horse” and “Unconditionally,” itself also topped the Billboard 200 albums chart for one week in November 2013.
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“I was really inspired by this little six-minute thing by Eckhart Tolle where he speaks about loss,” Perry told Billboard in a cover story at the time, referring to a video from the author of the best-selling self-help book, The Power of Now, as Perry was navigating her divorce from ex-husband Russell Brand. “When you lose something, all your foundations crumble-but that also leaves a big hole that’s open for something great to come through.”
In 2014, “Roar” was nominated for song of the year and best pop solo performance at the Grammy Awards. The song was certified Diamond by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) in 2017, making Perry the first artist to have three Diamond-certified singles in the country, following “Firework” and “Dark Horse.”
Revisit Katy Perry’s “Roar” music video below.