Kelly Clarkson

Kelly Clarkson became famous when her beautiful voice won the hearts and minds of the United States of America, and she was voted the American Idol.

The twenty-year-old from Texas performed live every week for ten weeks, to an audience of 25 million, on America’s biggest ever TV show, despite never having had a professional singing lesson. She received 57% of the vote in the final.

“Nobody really realized I had a talent until I joined my school choir when I was 13. My teacher really pushed me since I was behind everyone else who had been doing it since 4th grade.”

Kelly developed quickly and, before long, was entertaining audiences in various competitions.

She earned a living as a waitress, a chemist’s assistant, at the movie theater, and even at the zoo!

It was a strange chain of events that really put Kelly on the path to music though. Having moved to Los Angeles after graduation, she began sending out tapes of her singing, and trying to get into the music industry. However, this all stopped when her apartment burned down, leaving her very poor. The young singer made the 24-hour drive home with nothing.

It was her best friend, Jessica, who was determined for Kelly not to give up, and suggested she tried out for American Idol. Kelly knew nothing about it. “I went and auditioned for fun, and here I am!”

Her first pop song went straight to number one in its first week, and she hasn’t looked back since.

The final ten performers from the show joined up again for the American Idol Tour, which took them from Seattle to New York, playing to over 200,000 fans.