Early career Perri moved to Los Angeles on her 21st birthday. According to Perri, she felt terrified to be over 3,000 miles away from her family, saying she "cried [her] eyes out every day." Later that year, she married and began to produce music videos for a living. She divorced 18 months later and moved into a small apartment on her own to focus entirely on working on music. She moved back to Philadelphia by the end of 2009; it was during this time that she wrote "
Jar of Hearts". She later moved back to
Los Angeles, working as a waitress at the Melrose Cafe during the day and recording at night.
2010–2012: Lovestrong Perri's song "Jar of Hearts" was featured on
So You Think You Can Dance during the show of June 30, 2010 in a performance by Billy Bell and
Kathryn McCormick. Perri's friend
Keltie Knight passed the song to show choreographer
Stacey Tookey, as Perri was unsigned at the time. Perri and Knight watched the performance in the audience. Following its exposure on the show, "Jar of Hearts" sold 48,000 digital copies in its first week, debuting on the
Billboard Hot 100 at No. 63 and reaching No. 28 on
Billboard's
Hot Digital Songs. Following the success of "Jar of Hearts", Perri signed a deal with
Atlantic Records on July 21, 2010. She recorded an EP titled
The Ocean Way Sessions that was released on November 9, 2010. The second single from Perri's debut album, "
Arms", was released on March 15, 2011. She released her debut album,
Lovestrong, on May 10, 2011. It debuted at number 4 on the
Billboard 200, with first-week sales of 58,000 copies. In the United Kingdom,
Lovestrong was the thirteenth highest selling debut album of 2011. In July 2011, Perri embarked on her first world tour, the Lovestrong Tour, which lasted for almost exactly a year and consisted of 71 dates. Perri released her single "
A Thousand Years", which appeared on the soundtrack of
The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn – Part 1, on October 18, 2011. The song debuted at number 63 on the
Billboard Hot 100 and peaked at number 31, but has been certified 4× platinum with over 4 million sales in the US alone since. The song is Perri's most successful single to date. The album's third and final single, "
Distance", was released on March 20, 2012. Perri also announced in
San Juan, Puerto Rico during her Lovestrong Tour that she had begun to work on her second studio album. In addition, in late 2012 Perri was the opening act for
Jason Mraz's concert tour, the
Love Is a Four Letter Word Tour, across continental North America in 2012. On August 1, 2012, she announced via Facebook that
A Very Merry Perri Christmas EP would be released on October 16, 2012. The album consisted of one original song, "Something About December", which served as the lead single, as well as four covers. Perri re-recorded "A Thousand Years" for
The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn – Part 2 soundtrack with guest vocals from
Steve Kazee, titled "A Thousand Years, Pt. 2". On May 14, 2013, she received the
BMI award for her song "A Thousand Years" at the 61st annual BMI Pop Awards held in
Beverly Hills, California.
2013–2019: Head or Heart, Songs for Carmella In 2013, Perri began regularly tweeting and posting pictures on
Instagram regarding her second studio album's progress using the
hashtag "#albumtwo". In February, Perri partnered with the non-profit organization
To Write Love on Her Arms on a three-stop tour to raise money for the charity and debuted a brand new song from her second studio album, titled "I Believe", at the shows. On June 21, Perri tweeted announcing that the second album was coming together. On November 11, 2013, Perri announced that her first single from her new album is called "
Human". The song was released on November 18, 2013, on
iTunes. Perri performed the song on
The Queen Latifah Show the same day. On November 28, 2013, Perri revealed that her second studio album would be titled
Head or Heart and it was released on April 1, 2014. On May 29, it was announced that she would open
Demi Lovato's new North American World Tour dates. Perri later announced that her second concert tour would be titled the Head or Heart Tour, which began in April 2014. On June 9, she released the second single from her second album, "
Burning Gold". with the video released on August 1. On December 19, 2014, Perri performed in the annual "Christmas in Washington" holiday concert. In June 2016, it was announced that Perri would feature on the title track of
Lindsey Stirling's third studio album,
Brave Enough, which came out on August 19, 2016. Later, on December 14, 2018, she revealed her first lullaby album,
Songs for Carmella: Lullabies & Sing-a-Longs, dedicated to her daughter and released on Carmella's first birthday, January 17, 2019. On November 22, 2019, Perri also launched a deluxe version of her 2012 Christmas EP, titled
A Very Merry Perri Christmas (Extra Presents), featuring additional covers of "
I'll Be Home for Christmas" and "
Let It Snow".
2021–present: Songs for Rosie, A Lighter Shade of Blue, and Songs for Pixie Perri released her second lullaby album, titled
Songs for Rosie. It serves as a tribute to her late daughter, Rosie, and acts as a companion to
Songs for Carmella. It was released on November 24, 2021, coinciding with what would have been Rosie's first birthday. In March 2022, Perri released a song "Evergone" as the lead single from her forthcoming fifth overall studio album. Speaking to Philip Logan of
ClebMix about the single, Perri discussed waiting a year between writing the song and its actual release, stating, "I needed to put an oxygen mask on myself first before I could then venture back out into the world to try to help others breathe a little easier too". The fifth overall studio album,
A Lighter Shade of Blue, was released by
Elektra Records on July 15, 2022. In August 2024, Perri announced that she was in the process of writing a children's book based on her 2011 song, "A Thousand Years". Speaking to
People about the book, Perri said, "I decided to make lullaby albums because that's what I'm singing to my girls, and so I make a lullaby version of 'A Thousand Years', and now everybody's playing that on
TikTok." She added, "People played the original to their kids long before I decided to sing it to my own kids... It just happened so naturally..." Ultimately, she concluded, "...It kind of felt like the most natural thing to do to make it a kid's book." ==Personal life==