Colleen Ballinger

Colleen Mae Ballinger, born November 21, 1986, in Santa Barbara, California, is an American comedian, actress, singer, writer, and YouTuber. The daughter of Tim Ballinger, a sales manager, and Gwen Ballinger, a homemaker, she grew up alongside two older brothers, Christopher and Trent, and a younger sister, Rachel. After being homeschooled during middle school and attending San Marcos High School, she graduated from Azusa Pacific University in 2008 with a degree in vocal performance.

Ballinger is widely recognized as the creator and performer of the internet character Miranda Sings, a comically talentless and egotistical persona she developed to satirize aspiring singers who post videos online while appearing unaware of their lack of ability. She began performing the character as a live one-woman comedy act in 2009 and has since toured in theatres worldwide. The Miranda Sings YouTube channel has accumulated more than 2.3 billion views and over 10 million subscribers, while Ballinger's combined YouTube channels have surpassed 5 billion total views. Her social media presence extends to TikTok, where the Miranda Sings account has more than 13 million followers, and Instagram, where the character has over 6 million followers. In 2016, Forbes ranked Ballinger ninth among the highest-earning YouTubers.

Her screen work includes creating and starring in the Netflix original series Haters Back Off, which ran from 2016 to 2017, and voicing the character Crandy on the Netflix animated series Centaurworld in 2021. She appeared as The Disco Dancer in season 3 of the web series Escape the Night in 2018 and returned as The Duchess in season 4 in 2019. Additional screen appearances include a cameo in the 2018 animated film Ralph Breaks the Internet and a role in Ariana Grande's music video "Thank U, Next" that same year. Ballinger has appeared on The Tonight Show three times between 2016 and 2017 and served as a guest co-host on The View in 2015.

Her stage career began in earnest in 2007, when she performed at Disneyland in California. In 2009, she played Kelsi Nielsen in a production of High School Musical at Candlelight Pavilion Dinner Theatre in Claremont, California. In New York in 2011, she played Lynda Bird Johnson in a staged reading of First Kids and originated the role of Circe in the American Theatre of Actors Off-Broadway production Odyssey – The Epic Musical. Ballinger made her Broadway debut in the musical Waitress, playing the role of Dawn from August to September 2019. During the week of her debut, the production's box office gross rose by $358,783 to $938,087, climbing further to $963,408 the following week.

Among her additional credits, Ballinger appeared on the 2010 album More With Every Line by Tim Prottey-Jones and the 2011 album Self Taught, Still Learning by Chris Passey. She is featured on the track "Clouds" from Flula Borg's 2015 EP I Want to Touch You. In 2015, she won a Teen Choice Award for Web Star: Comedy and a Streamy Award for Best Actress. That same year, she published the best-selling book Selp-Helf, written in Miranda's voice, followed by a second book, My Diarrhe, in 2018. Beginning in 2021, Ballinger and her husband, Erik Stocklin, hosted a weekly podcast titled Relax! with Colleen and Erik on Apple Podcasts. In July 2023, following widely reported accusations of inappropriate conduct, Ballinger cancelled her forthcoming live shows, though she has continued to vlog and host podcasts.