Inside the rise of Colleen Ballinger, the 'Miranda Sings' YouTuber who is under scrutiny over a teen scandal

Colleen Ballinger is a performer who originated the "Miranda Sings" character.Left to right: Brill/ullstein bild/Getty Images; Amy Sussman/E! Entertainment/NBCU Photo Bank; Scott Kowalchyk/CBS/Getty Images

• Colleen Ballinger has been a top YouTuber for the last decade, as a vlogger and the creator of the Miranda Sings character.
• Videos from Miranda Sings' channel and her own personal vlog channels have earned billions of views in total since the first Miranda video in 2008.
• Ballinger, 33, has recently faced criticism over old jokes that some have called offensive and racist.
• A 17-year-old boy posted a YouTube video in April alleging that he ghost-wrote Miranda Sings content for years, and that Ballinger had sent him lingerie in the mail when he was only 13.
• Ballinger addressed the controveries in a new video on May 12.
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Among a certain group of musical theater obsessives and YouTube fans, Colleen Ballinger is considered one of the internet's biggest stars. She burst onto the YouTube scene in 2008 with her character Miranda on the channel "Miranda Sings," portraying an untalented woman who believes she's destined for fame.

In the 12 years since Ballinger, a trained musical theater performer, achieved online fame with Miranda, she's appeared on late-night talk shows, had her own Netflix series, performed on Broadway, published two books, and become a popular vlogger on her personal channel, which has more than 1.6 billion views.