Katy Perry’s Blue Origin Crew Mate Talks ‘Depression’ From Flight

Katy Perry‘s fellow crew member on the Blue Origin Spaceflight, Amanda Nguyen, is opening up about going through dark times.

The activist, who was part of the all-female flight crew alongside Perry and Gayle King, revealed that she fell into a depressive state after the mission received backlash from the public.

Many high-profile celebrities even joined the public in heavily criticizing the mission for wastage.

Over the weekend, Nguyen shared a vulnerable post on Instagram, opening up about feeling depressed amid the negative press her trip to space brought on.

She shared that King had called to check on her after the spaceflight, and she couldn’t help but feel that the negative emotions were here to stay.

​“When Gayle called to check in on me in the aftermath of the spaceflight, I told her my depression might last for years,” she wrote.

​Nguyen explained that the incident was a “dream turned into a nightmare” because it felt like everything she had worked hard for as a scientist and activist was simply “buried under an avalanche of misogyny.”

​Not holding back, the 34-year-old social entrepreneur noted that, given its high level of public attention, the negative press it received became almost too much for her to handle. In her words:

​“The volume of coverage was unprecedented. With social media and a 24/7 news cycle, it surpassed coverage of even the most historic spaceflights. At that scale, even a small fraction of negativity becomes staggering. It amounted to billions of hostile impressions – an onslaught no human brain has evolved to endure.”

​As a result, Nguyen confined herself to the four walls of her house, as she “did not leave Texas for a week, unable to get out of bed.”

Even when a staff member at Blue Origin called to check up on her, she had to hang up on him due to the onslaught of emotions that still plagued her.​

Despite feeling down, Nguyen tried to reflect on the positive side of the incident. She noted that the spotlight on her drew attention to her breast cancer research and women’s health as a whole, which she was “deeply grateful for.”

​“The breast cancer research I flew was uplifted by the media, bringing attention to women’s health. The flight opened doors to speak to world leaders and advance my fight for rape survivors’ rights in an unprecedented way,” she wrote.

​Now, months after the dust has settled, the civil rights activist happily shared that the depressive “fog of grief has started to lift.”

She noted that her friends and love for community helped her come out of the dark place and thanked the people around her for the kind interactions they maintained with her.

Nguyen’s heartfelt post comes about ten months after it was announced that she was set to join Katy Perry, Gayle King, Aisha Bowe, and Lauren Sanchez in an all-female crew on the Blue Origin space mission.

​When the announcement was made, the statement noted that Perry was “honored” to be a part of the female crew and hoped that the mission would encourage her daughter and other women around the world.​

Sanchez also shared excitement about the mission, while King revealed that she was both “terrified and excited” at the same time.

Sanchez, King, Nguyen, and other members of the all-female crew took off on April 14, during which they completed an 11-minute space flight. However, following their return to earth, the women received negative backlash from the public, including high-profile personalities such as Emily Ratajkowski.

​According to The Blast, the model shared a video on TikTok saying that the mission was “beyond parody.” She slammed the crew for claiming to care about Mother Earth but still going up in a spaceship that is built and paid for by a company that’s single-handedly destroying the planet.”

​She also drew attention to the amount of resources that went into funding the mission and expressed “disgust” at the situation, saying that while it “optically looks like progress,” it’s not.

Ratajkowski wasn’t the only high-profile figure to slam the space mission. Joe Rogan similarly criticized the crew members, particularly Perry.

​Rogan joked about the mission and took jabs at Perry, saying that his life had improved significantly since she returned from space.

​“I’m much better now that the ladies are back from space, thank you,” Rogan joked at the start of the podcast. It was very profound. I don’t know if you’ve seen Katy Perry talk about it, she’s basically a guru now,” he said, per The Blast.

​He also took jabs at the singer’s decision to take a daisy to space, sarcastically noting how “super important” it was.