Clay Aiken

Clayton Holmes Aiken, born November 30, 1978, in Raleigh, North Carolina, is an American singer, actor, television personality, and political activist. He legally changed his surname from Grissom to Aiken at age 19, adopting his mother Faye's maiden name after becoming estranged from his birth father, Vernon Grissom. Aiken attended Leesville Road High School in Raleigh, took courses at Campbell University, and later enrolled at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, where he pursued a degree in special education. He completed his coursework while on tour and graduated in December 2003.

From an early age, Aiken was involved in music and performance. As a boy he sang in the Raleigh Boychoir, and as a teenager he participated in school choirs, church choir, musicals, and local theatre productions. He later sang lead with a local band, Just By Chance, and served as MC and performer at events including the Johnston Community College Country Showcase and the North Carolina Music Connection shows. He performed the national anthem for the Raleigh IceCaps and the Carolina Hurricanes, and sang it at the 2011 NHL All-Star Game at the RBC Center in Raleigh. Three demo recordings were produced before his national breakthrough, including a cassette titled Look What Love Has Done, a cassette and CD titled Redefined, and a combined CD titled Look What Love Has Done, Vol. 2.

His interest in special education developed during his teenage years while directing YMCA children's camps, a role he began in 1995. At 19, he worked as a substitute teacher for a classroom of autistic students at Brentwood Elementary School in Raleigh. While attending college in Charlotte, he took a part-time job assisting an autistic boy, and it was that child's mother, Diane Bubel, who encouraged him to audition for American Idol.

Aiken finished second on the second season of American Idol in 2003, receiving the runner-up position behind Ruben Studdard by 134,000 votes out of more than 24 million cast. His debut album, Measure of a Man, released October 14, 2003, went multi-platinum. He subsequently released four additional albums on the RCA label: Merry Christmas with Love (2004), A Thousand Different Ways (2006), the Christmas EP All is Well (2006), and On My Way Here (2008). Two further albums followed on Decca Records: Tried and True (2010) and Steadfast (2012). Across his recording career, Aiken has sold over five million albums and is the fourth-highest-selling American Idol alumnus. He has also undertaken eleven tours in support of his albums.

Beyond recording, Aiken co-wrote a bestselling memoir, Learning to Sing, in 2004, and that same year hosted a televised Christmas special, A Clay Aiken Christmas. In 2010, he hosted the PBS special Tried & True Live!, and in 2012 he competed in the fifth season of The Celebrity Apprentice, finishing second to Arsenio Hall.

Aiken's Broadway career spanned 2005 to 2018. In 2008, he appeared in the musical comedy Spamalot in the role of Sir Robin. He also starred in Ruben & Clay's First Annual Christmas Carol Family Fun Pageant Spectacular Reunion Show.

In 2003, Aiken and Diane Bubel co-founded the Bubel/Aiken Foundation, later renamed the National Inclusion Project. He served as a UNICEF ambassador beginning in 2004, a role he held until 2013, during which he traveled extensively. In 2006, he was appointed to a two-year term on the Presidential Committee for People with Intellectual Disabilities.

Aiken has also pursued a career in electoral politics. In 2014, he ran for the United States House of Representatives in North Carolina's 2nd congressional district, won the Democratic primary, and lost to Republican incumbent Renee Ellmers in the general election. In January 2022, he announced a campaign for the Democratic nomination in North Carolina's 4th congressional district but lost in the primary to Valerie Foushee.