Colleen Ballinger

Colleen Mae Ballinger (born November 21, 1986) is an American comedian, actress, singer and YouTube personality. She is best known for her Internet character Miranda Sings, posting videos of the character on YouTube, performing her one-woman comedy act on tour in theatres worldwide and creating a Netflix original television show based on the character. She created the comically talentless, egotistical and eccentric character to satirize the many YouTube videos featuring people singing badly in hopes of breaking into show business, but who appear unaware of their lack of talent. In her videos and stage act, the narcissistic character sings and dances badly, discusses current events that she misunderstands, gives inept "tutorials", collaborates with other YouTubers, and rants about her critics, whom she calls the "haters". Ballinger also features comedy and lifestyle videos on her personal YouTube channel and a vlog channel, Colleen Vlogs. Her YouTube channels, combined, have surpassed 3 billion total views. The Miranda Sings channel has more than 9 million subscribers, and the character has more than 6 million Instagram followers. Ballinger won a Teen Choice Award for "Web Star: Comedy" and a Streamy Award as Best Actress. The Hollywood Reporter selected her as one of its Top 25 Digital Stars, and she was ranked No. 5 on Forbes magazine's 2017 list of top entertainment influencers. Ballinger has appeared as an actress and singer Off-Broadway, in regional theatre, on television, recordings and in web series. In 2014, she guest-starred as Miranda Sings on Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee with Jerry Seinfeld and appeared as Miranda on The Tonight Show. In 2015, Ballinger released a best-selling book, written in Miranda's voice, Selp Helf. Ballinger conceived, produced, wrote for and starred as Miranda in the Netflix series, Haters Back Off, which explored Miranda's origins and family life; the series ran for two seasons, 2016 and 2017. In 2018, she appeared in season 3 of Escape the Night. She has toured as Miranda in live comedy shows since the character became popular in 2009.