Orlando Bloom Opens Up About Being Celibate for 6 Months Before Meeting Katy Perry

Katy Perry and Orlando Bloom at the LA Premiere of Amazon's "Carnival Row"
Axelle/Bauer-Griffin/FilmMagic

The actor is getting candid about his sex life.

Orlando Bloom is opening up about his sex life -- revealing that he was celibate for six months before meeting Katy Perry in 2016. 

In an interview with The U.K.'s The Sunday Times, the Carnival Row star said he turned to celibacy at the suggestion of his friend Laird Hamilton. Bloom had told the surfer he "wasn't happy." 

"Laird said, 'If you want to be serious about a relationship, go celibate for a few months and figure it out,'" he revealed. "It takes away the idea of going to a party and thinking, 'Who am I going to meet?' I was suddenly, like, 'Oh, I can have a relationship with a woman that is just friends.'" 

Bloom "was going to do three months" of celibacy, but then kept going. "I was really enjoying the way I was relating to women, and to the feminine within myself," he explained. "I know that sounds crazy."

When asked if he looked to pornography as a substitute for sex, Bloom insisted he did "completely nothing" during those months. "It was insane. I don't think it’s healthy. I don't think it was advisable. You have to keep it moving down there," he shared -- but added that he finds "porn is super disruptive to your sex life, to your libido." 

"They’ve done the studies, they can't find any kids who don't watch it. When you watch multiple people at multiple times in one evening, how is your actual real-life partner going to match up?" he noted. "It's just so destructive."

Bloom's celibacy stopped after meeting Perry at the Golden Globes in 2016. They had previously crossed paths, but never "hung out and connected." The stars dated on-and-off starting that year, and Bloom proposed on Valentine's Day in 2019. 

"So there's Katy Perry, and there's Katheryn Hudson, her real name," Bloom said of his fiancee, who is pregnant with their first child together. "Katheryn is the woman I'm really intrigued by. It's like, I'm a boy from Kent and you're a girl from Santa Barbara. That's what I'm focused on, not the bells and whistles."

"She's amazing at arranging things," the actor added. "My son put it so well. I asked, 'What’s it like with Mum and her husband [Miranda Kerr and Evan Spiegel]? How’s it different to us?' He smiled. 'You're the fun couple.'" 

Bloom and Perry were supposed to tie the knot this summer in Japan, but a source told ET earlier this month that they have postponed their nuptials due to the coronavirus pandemic. See more on the couple in the video below. 

RELATED CONTENT: