Sunday, November 20, 2022

Kim Petras Shares Her Spiritual Enlightenment Playlist

Growing up in rural Germany, Kim Petras would watch her sisters and friends receive communion at church, feeling excluded but also conflicted. "As someone who's been transgender my whole life, I never fit into [organized] religion," she says. "I had a lot of religious friends, and I would go to their First Communion and things like that, but I was never really accepted into that world because who I am opposes what is acceptable in religion." She feels lucky to have parents who never forced her to conform, "but everybody else had a chance to be religious, and I never did. So for me, it's been a lifelong struggle to find spirituality in other ways."

Like many, Petras turned to music, writing countless songs in her bedroom, and eventually selling a jingle to a laundry detergent company in her teens. Not too long after, the now-30-year-old moved to L.A. and began releasing music through her own imprint, BunHead, slowly building a legion of fans, charmed by her over-the-top, sex-positive pop. Last summer, she signed to Republic Records, and this past September, "Unholy," a collaboration with Sam Smith that explores themes of adultery and eroticism, shot to the top of Billboard's Hot 100 chart, and made Kim Petras a household name.

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