Trudeau

KATY PERRY is on tour across Europe and her No1 groupie – former Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau – has been a regular at her shows.

I can reveal he has spent his whole summer following her around on tour, and even brought friends to Europe to spend time on a yacht in between her concerts.

The superstar headlined the famous Isle of MTV concert in Malta on Wednesday — Europe’s largest free concert — and he was there cheering her on.

And we will soon be hearing a lot more from Katy, as I’m told she’s almost completed work on her eighth album, which has been inspired by moving on from long-term partner Orlando Bloom and finding love again with the politician.

That might be a surprise after the recent release of her singles Bandaids and Watch It Burn, which were written early last year and on which she gave Orlando both barrels. But now she’s done with writing break-up songs, telling the Unfamous podcast: “I know the next step I’m going to take.

“Watch It Burn, actually I didn’t need to do a whole EP of this feeling. But I needed to touch it and circle it.

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“And now I’m moving on and I’m going to be writing something that is going to represent what I’m feeling now.

“I have to process it. This is my therapy.

“This is my art.”

Wednesday’s concert attracted a crowd of 30,000 fans to Il-Fosos Square for the 18th year of Isle of MTV Malta, staged in partnership with Malta Tourism Authority.

Justin was seen bopping along to her biggest hits from the lighting tower, and she called out to him three times from the stage.

Before singing I’m His, He’s Mine, Katy, who was wearing a vintage costume she wore for an MTV VMAs advert in 2009, gushed: “I’m gonna dedicate this one to my boyfriend.

“I love when he comes to my shows, it always makes me so happy.

“I love you, baby.”

My insider said: “Katy is the happiest she has ever been now that she’s with Justin and she wants to reflect that in the music.

“The end of her relationship with Orlando was one of the hardest things she’s been through but she doesn’t want to dwell on it with the music.

“It’s about owning who she is and holding her head high.

“Justin feels like her soulmate and it’s been really inspiring for her.

“Most of the new album was recorded at the beginning of the year.

“The title Scorpio Bitch was discussed for the album but that’s likely to change as she doesn’t want to come off as too spiky.

“The album is almost done, she’s really proud of what she’s been working on.”

On stage, she was like an excitable, giddy teenager as she called out to him.

So I imagine it will be her most loved-up record ever.

IF you missed out on the chance to see Katy Perry on tour over the past year, you’ll soon be able to catch up on two of her live shows.

Her huge Isle of MTV Malta show will air on MTV on September 18 – showcasing her Out Of Office summer show, which she also performed at Blenheim Palace and Cardiff Castle earlier this month.

But that’s not all. Katy’s concert film The Lifetimes Tour: Live From Paris – recorded during her previous tour last year – is coming to 150 UK cinemas on September 2.

The two-hour film features footage of her singing her biggest hits as part of one of her most ambitious tours ever, plus there’s exclusive backstage footage included.

The tour reached more than one million fans during 91 shows in 23 countries, and raised almost £82,000 for the Music Venue Trust in the UK.

TOM TO KNOCK ‘EM DREAD

TOM HOLLAND is finally moving forward with his Fred Astaire biopic – but said he’s filled with “dread”.

Five years after revealing he’d be playing the actor and dancer, the Spider-Man star has started rehearsals and is determined to do all the dancing himself.

Speaking on US telly, Tom, who is currently on the promo trail for both The Odyssey and Spider-Man: Brand New Day, said: “What I love about my job is the challenges. We have Fred Astaire next. As soon as I finish these tours, I’m diving back into the dance studio.

“I did my first few rehearsals recently and it both filled me with excitement and absolute dread because I’ve got so much work to do to try to do Fred proud.”

He added he has “a desire to use no doubles” and shoot the dances in one shot as Fred would have done.

K-POP girl group AESPA are hitting up Pinkpantheress in the hope of a collaboration.

WINTER from the group said: “I’d love to work with PinkPantheress. I love the atmosphere she creates in her music. Bringing her style together with aespa’s could lead to something really fresh.”

JOANNE HAS VAPE ESCAPE

JOANNE McNALLY’s stint on Celebrity Traitors almost went up in smoke after she started vaping in the castle.

The comedian admitted puffing on an e-cig during filming, which meant producers had to intervene, as it can’t be shown on air.

She admitted: “I remember we were chatting, having a real deep and meaningful.

“And they cut filming. They’re like, ‘Joanne, you can’t vape in the castle’.

“I was really into this conversation, pulling on this vape. Because you feel relaxed in the castle.”

Asked if she forgot the cameras were there, she told the Bottom’s Up podcast: “Totally. And I always thought that was horses**t when I’d watch Big Brother before.

“I was like, ‘As if you could forget the cameras were there’. But you do, actually.”

I hope it doesn’t lead to her being smoked out when it airs in the autumn.

BURLESQUE The Musical’s UK tour will not open at Woking Theatre tomorrow, with the week-long run being cancelled just 48 hours before it was due to start.

The show starring Corrie’s Faye Brooks, has been plagued with a series of issues and is now scheduled to launch on August 6 at the Sunderland Empire. The London run has been postponed to 2027.

OASIS DOC GETS VENICE PREMIERE

NOEL and Liam Gallagher better dust off their tuxedos as new documentary, OASIS: Don’t Look Back In Anger will get its world premiere at the 83rd Venice International Film Festival.

The brothers, plus writer Steven Knight and directors Will Lovelace and Dylan Southern, are all expected to attend the event which starts on September 2.

Cameras followed Noel and Liam on last year’s worldwide sell-out stadium run, which saw them performing to millions of fans across 41 dates.

The documentary features revealing interviews and the first tentative meeting between the once-warring siblings.

Last year at Venice, docudrama The Voice Of Hind Rajab received the longest standing ovation in the festival’s history – with people clapping for 23 minutes and 50 seconds. Surely, Oasis can beat it.

DESTINY’S CHILD are gearing up to release a new album of unheard remixes, says Beyonce’s dad.

Mathew Knowles, who managed the girl group during their original run, said the project, will feature a collaboration with Missy Elliott. He said: “We have remixes that have never been released and we’ll be putting those out soon.”

Reporting from Manila — The contrast was inescapable. At the top of a local newspaper’s front page here was a huge photo of the new Canadian prime minister, in a trim suit and wind blowing through his hair, captioned “ladies’ choice.” Next to him was a workmanlike headline over a separate story: “Obama to give PH two warships.”

President Obama, once a glamorous figure among world leaders, has been replaced as the “It Boy” of the summit circuit by Canada’s newly elected Justin Trudeau, as heads of state meet up this week in Turkey, the Philippines and Malaysia.

Though Obama came to Manila for the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit with a new financial commitment to bolster the Philippine maritime fleet, the nation’s hearts and minds seemed won over by the 43-year-old Canadian, who lighted up Twitter with the designation #APECHottie.

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If there was any resentment on the part of a president whose hair is more salt than pepper these days, it didn’t show as he and Trudeau sat down here for their first official meeting.

Obama warned him: “If you don’t want to gray like me, you need to start dyeing it soon.”

“So young and yet so cynical,” Trudeau joked in response.

Though Trudeau’s global image as a hip, next-generation leader mirrors Obama’s of seven years ago, Trudeau’s views on some of Obama’s biggest policy priorities provide a more sobering contrast.

Trudeau has been ambivalent on the massive Pacific trade deal Obama is pushing, and he reiterated to Obama on Thursday that he planned to follow through on his campaign pledge to end Canada’s part in the air campaign against Islamic State — though his nation will ramp up efforts to train local fighters in Iraq and Syria.

“Canada continues to be a strong player, doing its part – and more than its part,” Trudeau said.

Differences in viewpoint between two North American leaders is familiar. Canadian leaders have long tried to show independence from the United States in matters of foreign policy. Trudeau’s father, Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau, was one of the first Western leaders to embrace communist China and grew so close to Fidel Castro that the Cuban leader served as an honorary pallbearer at his funeral.

“Canada and the U.S. have not always seen eye-to-eye when there’s a Liberal government in power, something that stems from Trudeau’s own party and parentage,” said Antonia Maioni, a political science professor at McGill University in Montreal who researches and writes about the Canadian political process and social policy. “It stems from the Canadian attitude that emerged under Pierre Trudeau that was about Canada finding its own way in international relations and not just being part of the U.S. orbit.”

But in the budding relationship between Obama and the younger Trudeau, there may be potential for collaboration, given the youth-oriented campaign that Trudeau ran – Obama noted the similarity to his own “hope and change” message – and their shared affinity for progressive social policies, especially on climate change.

Given that common ground, said Maioni, Trudeau may eventually drift more closely toward Obama’s point of view on national security and trade, too.

“A lot of people in Trudeau’s inner circle were inspired by and have taken advice from people around Obama,” she said. “That may open a conversation that would allow for change.”

Obama and Trudeau on Thursday began to explore an area in which they may be able make progress together – the fight against climate change.

Obama’s recent announcement to reject a Canadian company’s request to build the controversial Keystone XL pipeline that would have carried crude oil from Alberta to U.S. Gulf Coast refineries was fortunate for Trudeau, said James Coleman, a legal scholar at the University of Calgary who studies environmental and energy regulation. Even though Trudeau was in favor of the pipeline, he is helped by the timing of the debate over it, which came during the tenure of his predecessor, the Conservative Party’s Stephen Harper.

“Given that President Obama was going to reject the pipeline, sooner was better for him,” said Coleman. “Because now it will be easier for him to pin it on Harper.”

Added Coleman: “It’s not hard to predict a little more friendliness between Obama and Trudeau than there was between Obama and Harper.”

Trudeau, whose graduate studies were in environmental science, emphasized the similarities in his and Obama’s climate doctrines. He noted that Canadians feel that their government hasn’t done enough to protect the environment, and he vowed to set and meet tough targets for carbon reduction.

Obama echoed the sentiment, arguing that transition from fossil fuels “does not happen overnight,” especially by nations that produce and consume a lot of oil and gas. Seated next to Trudeau, the father of three young children, Obama also made an argument about parenthood.

“If we want to preserve this planet for our kids and grandkids, then we’re going to have to shift increasingly away from carbon-emitting energy sources,” Obama said.

“This is going to be a messy, bumpy process worldwide,” he said, “but I am confident that we can get it done.”

michael.memoli@latimes.com

christi.parsons@latimes.com

Memoli reported from Manila and Parsons from Washington.

For more White House coverage, follow @mikememoli and @cparsons

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