MTV News had been trying to sit down with [artist id="1962774"]Katy Perry[/artist] for months -- at the Grammys, during South by Southwest, anywhere and everywhere. The problem was, things just kept coming up. Video shoots and TV appearances. Schedules were shuffled, reformatted, then torn up and forgotten about. This happened more times than you could imagine.

This is sort of the way things are for Katy Perry these days. She's sold a million albums, notched three hits on the Billboard Hot 100, had breakups and feuds, become a sex symbol and a lightning rod ... all at roughly the same time, and all seemingly overnight. Everyone wants to talk to her and everyone wants her on their show or at their party or their red carpet. Getting time with her is not an easy task.

But, after months of trying, we finally got our sit-down. Perry chatted with MTV News' Kim Stolz here in New York, and it was worth the wait. Rather than avoiding questions or having her handlers waiting in the wings, Perry was an open book. She answered anything and everything, laughing and joking about her rise to stardom, her plans for a new album and just how she deals with life in the spotlight. It was rather refreshing, to be honest.

We've already published a pair of stories from the interview -- Perry talking about her plans to [article id="1608928"]stop kissing girls on her next album[/article], and addressing the rumors that she had [article id="1609022"]"reached out" to fellow singer Rihanna[/article] in the wake of her incident with boyfriend Chris Brown. The response to both was so great that we decided we should just go ahead and show you even more of our chat.

So, here's our favorite pop tart, unfiltered and unafraid -- weighing in on her love life, her career, the Rihanna situation, and, uh, [article id="1608317"]actress Zooey Deschanel[/article]. It's Katy Perry: Raw.