Singer Katy Perry has emerged victorious in her battle to purchase a Roman Catholic convent in Los Angeles after a judge ruled in her favor to move forward with the sale for a second time.
The Roar singer has been embroiled in a dispute since 2015 over the historic Los Feliz property, which was formerly occupied by the Sisters of the Immaculate Heart of Mary.
She put in an offer for the estate, which was accepted by representatives of the Archdiocese of Los Angeles, but two nuns who used to live there accepted another bid from businesswoman Dana Hollister, who subsequently moved in. Last year, a judge invalidated the sale to Hollister, but the ruling was subsequently vacated by state appellate judges.
However, on Tuesday, Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Stephanie Bowick approved the archdiocese’s motion to block the sale to Hollister again in its entirety, giving Perry the go-ahead to snap up the Roman villa-style property for $14.5 million.
According to the Los Angeles Times, Hollister, who offered to buy the former convent for $15.5 million, had hoped to convert the property into a hotel.
“The court finds that the Sisters did not have authority to sell the Property to Hollister,” the ruling reads. “Even assuming that the Sisters had the authority to dispose of the Property, which they did not, they nevertheless failed to validly consummate the transaction. The deal documents were not properly documented.”
Perry’s final bid to purchase the property will now face approval from officials at the Vatican.
The ruling comes a week after the nuns involved in the case slammed the 32-year-old for her “disgusting lifestyle”.
“(I would) not be very happy at all if Perry got the property,” Sister Rita Callanan told the DailyMail.com. “I do not like Katy Perry’s lifestyle. I gave a lot of the things from the internet to show the Archdiocese what kind of woman she was. Some of the things she does are disgusting.”
Sister Rita even went so far as to accuse Perry of practicing witchcraft.