Linda Perry: ‘I can’t believe I’ve allowed this film about me to come out’

Linda Perry: ‘I had a breakdown, and the f***ing camera was there for it’ - (Sacha Lecca)

Linda Perry wears many hats, both literally and figuratively, but she never expected anybody to make a film about her. A few years ago, when the singer, songwriter and producer agreed to let her friend Don Hardy follow her around with a camera, she thought she might get a few good clips out of it for social media. “I swear to f***ing God,” says Perry in her melodious California drawl. “I would never, ever, go: ‘Hey, let’s make a documentary about my life.’”

That was before she found herself undergoing a double mastectomy after a chance cancer diagnosis, while simultaneously confronting her difficult relationship with her dying mother. She was also fretting that she’d lost the ability to write for herself. “I had a breakdown, and the f***ing camera was there for it,” the 61-year-old tells me over the phone from her home in Los Angeles. “I can’t even f***ing believe I’ve allowed this to come out.”