Inside the rise of Colleen Ballinger, the 'Miranda Sings' YouTuber who is under scrutiny over a teen scandal
Inside the rise of Colleen Ballinger, the 'Miranda Sings' YouTuber who is under scrutiny over a teen scandal
Rachel E. Greenspan
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.
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.
A post shared by Colleen Ballinger (@colleen) on Apr 4, 2020 at 8:24pm PDT
Ballinger has also received some backlash online after a video from more than 10 years ago resurfaced that showed her and her sister dressing up as Latinx women. "It is not funny, and it is completely hurtful. I am so ashamed and embarrassed that I ever thought this was okay," she said. "I was a sheltered teenager who was stupid and ignorant and clearly extremely culturally insensitive."
She went on to say that she's grateful to her viewers who have taught her to be more sensitive and conscious of her actions in the last decade. "I can't even tell you how grateful I am for that. Because of you, I have become a better person," she said.
Ballinger confirmed the claims in a May 12 video, saying that she had learned from her mistakes and that the situation had been "blown out of proportion."
In a video posted to Ballinger's second vlog channel on May 12, she apologized for her comments and her actions. "I've learned from these things and I will continue to learn from them and grow from them to become the best me that I can possibly be," she said.
Ballinger apologized for the controversy over her relationship with McIntyre, but explained that giving away clothing and other miscellaneous items was a longstanding tradition in the Miranda Sings fandom.
"In my mind at the time, this was no different than the other stuff I send to my fans as a joke. Now in hindsight, I realize how completely stupid of me… I should have realized and recognized how dumb that was and never sent it to him," she said. "But it was never a creepy, gross thing that I was doing in secret — it was a silly, stupid mistake, that now is being blown way out of proportion."
A 17-year-old fan posted a YouTube video in April alleging that Ballinger had sent him lingerie when he was only 13 years old and that he'd ghost-written content for the Miranda Sings Twitter account without pay.
After Ballinger faced controversy over what many called a homophobic Miranda Sings joke, a 17-year-old fan named Adam McIntyre said in a YouTube video that he had been the one posting jokes about Miranda coming out as a fan of Meghan Trainor.
McIntyre alleged that he had written content for Miranda Sings on and off between 2017 and 2020, but that he was never paid for his work.
After the Trainor backlash, McIntyre said he felt upset with Ballinger because he felt she was blaming him for the controversy, though he had sent her the jokes to approve before he tweeted from the Miranda Sings account.
A post shared by Colleen Ballinger (@colleen) on Sep 15, 2019 at 8:15am PDT
Ballinger played Dawn in "Waitress" on Broadway for a four-week limited engagement in 2019. "You don't understand how exciting this is for me," Ballinger said in a YouTube video when she announced the news. "This has literally been my dream since I could speak."
She appeared in Ariana Grande's "Thank U, Next" music video in 2018.
Ballinger is an old friend of singer Ariana Grande, and appeared in the 2018 "Mean Girls" inspired music video for "Thank U, Next." Ballinger guest-starred on an episode of Grande's Nickelodeon show, "Victorious," in 2012.
Ballinger married her "Haters Back Off" costar Erik Stocklin in 2018 and the couple had a baby together.
A post shared by Colleen Ballinger (@colleen) on May 6, 2020 at 2:49pm PDT
Ballinger and Stocklin, who is also an actor, had their son, Flynn, in December 2018. Ballinger often includes her husband and son in her YouTube videos.
Ballinger had a very public divorce from her ex-husband Joshua Evans in 2016.
Colleen Ballinger/YouTube
In October 2016, after less than a year of marriage, Ballinger and her then-husband, YouTuber Joshua Evans, announced in separate YouTube videos that they were getting a divorce. The two had both been vlogging about their relationship online for years. Both original videos have since been deleted or made private.
"You've watched us date, you've watched us get engaged, you've watched us get married," Ballinger said in her video. "We've shown you everything because we wanted to, and I don't regret any of that, but, you know, we chose to not share with you the hard parts of our relationship. And there were a lot of hard parts of our relationship."
In the description box of the video, Ballinger said that this was "the most difficult decision I have ever had to make in my entire life," according to Teen Vogue.
In a video posted to YouTube on May 5, Evans opened up about his struggles with alcoholism and mental health, and said that he had gotten sober. "There's so many things that I have discovered and realized," he said, adding that he hoped he would be able to help viewers facing similar issues. "I needed to hear this."
In November 2014, Ballinger appeared in character as Miranda on an episode of "Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee" with Jerry Seinfeld.
In an interview with New York Magazine, Seinfeld said that Miranda was a "very well-developed character," and that it was one of the best episodes of his show "we've ever done." The next month, Ballinger appeared in-character as Miranda on "The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon."
Once the Miranda Sings channel began reaching millions of viewers, she took her act on the road and performed a one-woman show as the character around the world.
Ballinger has performed live as Miranda Sings for the last decade. Her touring production, usually a one-woman show, has traveled throughout the US and internationally. Ballinger has said that fans of her character, called Mirfandas, skew towards teenagers and kids but include adults as well.
Ballinger has said she modeled Miranda after other girls she had studied vocal performance with and people who posted videos of themselves singing poorly on YouTube.
Ballinger has said in multiple interviews that she was inspired by real women in her college vocal performance program to create Miranda, as well as the countless YouTube videos she saw of not-quite-talented people trying to become famous with their covers of pop and Broadway music.
"I had begun by posting some videos of my own performances, and then I started seeing these links from girls who would sit in their bedroom and sing into the camera," Ballinger told Broadway World in 2010. "I thought it was so stupid, because I didn't think anybody got famous off of YouTube."
Ballinger is a musical theater performer who became famous online for her "Miranda Sings" character, which she originated in 2008.
Ballinger posted her first video to the Miranda Sings channel, a cover of Aretha Franklin's "Respect," in February 2008. Though Ballinger is a trained singer, the premise of Miranda's channel is that she's an untalented and cocky woman who believes she's amazing.
For the Miranda character, Ballinger wears excess lipstick, speaks with an extremely specific inflection, often calls out her "haters," and sings badly. Her singing voice is off-key and off-rhythm, and Miranda often shares politically incorrect and sometimes offensive points of view. She also refers to any inappropriate behavior, sexual references, or nudity, as "porn."
The character soon gained attention among the Broadway community for its unique humor. As The Los Angeles Times wrote in 2009, "One of the most popular stars in the Broadway community at the moment is a tone-deaf crooner who has no stage presence and even less acting talent."
The Miranda Sings channel has 10.8 million subscribers and has reached more than two billion views, while Ballinger's main vlogging channel has 8.6 million subscribers.
Ballinger has always loved performing and studied vocal performance in college, though she wanted to be a model as a kid.
A post shared by Colleen Ballinger (@colleen) on Jul 4, 2019 at 8:03pm PDT
Ballinger was raised with her three siblings, Rachel, Trent, and Chris, in Santa Barbara, California, according to her Facebook page. As a kid, Ballinger would always sing and perform for her family, and she later studied vocal performance at Azusa Pacific University in California, though she had wanted to become a model when she was younger.
Her grandfather, who passed away in 2011, was a huge inspiration to Ballinger growing up. In a 2016 tweet, she shared a picture of her and her grandpa at one of her first Miranda Sings performances. "He was so supportive of my career and is the reason I do what I do," she said.
Ballinger has said that she experienced bullying in her childhood. "I'm now am at a place where I know how to deal with it and be okay," she said in a 2018 video.
