Rebecca Black, whose music video for the song “Friday” viral fame for all the wrong reasons when she was just 13, is getting the last laugh.
Black announced Sunday, March 9 on her Instagram page that she’s been chosen to open 20 arena shows on Katy Perry‘s The Lifetimes Tour which include stops at Honda Center in Anaheim on July 13 and the Kia Forum in Inglewood on July 15.
“Secrets out,” Black wrote in the caption to a photograph of her and Perry. “@katyperry i can’t wait to join you on THE LIFETIMES TOUR!!!!”
Perry, in turn, announced her choice of opener on her social media, writing, “About to spend a lot more Fridays with @MsRebeccaBlackWELCOME TO THE LIFETIMES TOUR BABES.” A video included with the post showed Perry joining Black on stage a few days ago, going down on one knee, and asking Black to join her on the tour.
The Orange County native had received only minimal attention for the “Friday” video when the song and video her parents partly paid to have made was released in early 2011. After its first month on YouTube it had about 1,000 views.
Then comedian Daniel Tosh posted it on the blog for his then-popular TV show “Tosh.0” and the video took off. Within a week, “Friday” had 13 million views and the reviews on social media were, well, not kind. At all. (The video has 174 million views on YouTube today.)
In her first-ever interview, Rebecca and her mother told the Orange County Register what it had been like to see a fun song and video project turn into a tsunami of terribleness.
But Black, now 27, never gave up. As 2011 unfolded, a counterwave of support for the bullied Black emerged. It included an appearance in Katy Perry’s music video for “Last Friday Night.” Later that same year Black joined Perry on stage at the then-Nokia Theatre, singing a snippet of “Friday” with her at the downtown Los Angeles venue.
She recorded more songs in the years that followed, many of them somewhat generic pop tunes, and played small shows in tiny venues to keep going. After high school, she moved to Los Angeles, and started working in an edgier vein.
Then, 11 years after “Friday,” Black’s years of sticking to the dream paid off. Suddenly, she was cool, playing a sold-out show at the Troubadour in West Hollywood, DJing a set at the Do Lab at Coachella that year, and more.
This year, the release of the new album “Salvation,” arrived and major news outlets covered her like any other rising young pop star.
And now, 14 years after she sat in her mother’s home in Yorba Linda, describing how she cried as the digital trolls mocked “Friday,” she’s coming home to Orange County to play one of its biggest venues as the support act on Perry’s tour.