Kelly Clarkson Biography:
Kelly Brianne Clarkson (born April 24, 1982) is an American singer who was the winner of the first season of American Idol.
Clarkson was born in Fort Worth, Texas and later moved to Burleson, Texas. In middle school, she was overheard singing in a school corridor by a teacher who invited her to join the school choir. Her participation in choral and musical activities spurred her interest in a recording career and, following her high school graduation, she relocated to Los Angeles, California.
Clarkson worked as an extra on television (one such appearance was on Sabrina the Teenage Witch) and worked briefly with songwriter Gerry Goffin. After her Los Angeles apartment burned down, however, she moved back to Texas discouraged, but still intent on a career in show business.
Clarkson rose to fame on the United States TV program American Idol. Before her run on that show, she managed some odd jobs. She worked as a cocktail waitress, a promo girl for Red Bull, at a movie theater (where the premiere of her movie, From Justin to Kelly, was later held), in a pharmacy, at Chili's, the Fort Worth Zoo, as a telemarketer, sold Kirby vacuum cleaners door to door for a day, and did other jobs as well.
In 2004 Kelly Clarkson released Breakaway, her sophomore release, and it debuted at #3. Though her first album debuted at #1 and sold a few thousand more copies in its first week, industry experts noted this was not too bad of a sophomore slump. Breakaway received mostly high marks from critics, who stated that the artistic and commercial success of the album cemented Clarkson's place in the pop music industry, separate from the 'American Idol' machine. To date, Breakaway has sold over a million copies and remains in the Billboard Top 20, selling about 80,000 copies per week, while her singles 'Breakaway' and 'Since U Been Gone' shoot their way through the Billboard Hot 100.
Clarkson has also appeared on NBC's 'American Dreams' as Brenda Lee.
Though so far the most commercially successful of Idol winners, she has also had her share of controversy, such as allegations that her work doing demos for a record company broke show rules about not having a contract with a record company and what some saw as poor sportsmanship on her part during the World Idol competition.
She appeared as the musical guest on Saturday Night Live on February 12, 2005
