Lilly Singh

Singh, in her book cover for "How to be a Bawse".

### Occupation

YouTuber, Vlogger, Dancer, Rapper, Comedian, Motivational Speaker, Actress, Author

### Website

http://lillysingh.com/

**Lilly Saini Singh**, (born September 26, 1988) also known by her Internet moniker **IISuperwomanII**, is a YouTube personality, comedian, vlogger, actress, dancer, writer, rapper, motivational speaker and television presenter. Born September 26 1988 in Scarborough, Toronto, Lilly is one of the world's most popular and best-known YouTube stars with over 2.7 billion views and 14 million subscribers on her main channel. She is also one of the world's highest-paid YouTubers, earning a reported $7,500,000 in 2016. In the same year, she released a red lipstick in partnership with Smashbox called "Bawse", released a documentary, *A Trip to Unicorn Island* based on her 2015 world tour of the same name and in 2017 released her debut book: *How to be a Bawse: A Guide to Conquering Life*. In mid-2018, Singh released the first episode of Spice News, an IGTV series starring her parent characters. In July 2014 she released her commercial debut single with Humble the Poet, "#LEH".

In March 2019, it was announced that Singh will be premiering her own late-night talk show, *A Little Late with Lilly Singh*, in the fall, to replace *Last Call with Carson Daly* on NBC. The show will be produced by Singh's own production company, Unicorn Island Productions, and she will serve as executive producer.

In early 2018, Singh adopted a dog, Scarbro, who has his own Instagram account and features heavily in many of Lilly's videos.

Lilly has featured in the annual YouTube Rewind every single year since 2014: In 2014 she is seen attempting to put sweatpants on with no hands, in 2015 she was the first star to appear and danced on a barge celebrating LGBT rights, in 2016 she appeared as Beyoncé in her "Hold Up" video and in 2017 she guest starred alongside musician Poppy stirring a mug of tea. In 2018 she talked around a campfire with other creators such as Liza Koshy and TheOdd1sOut to figure out the best thing to do with their "control" of YouTube.

In 2015, Lilly launched an app entitled "Lilly Singh's Unicorn Island", a social media app created for fans to share their feelings, thoughts and fan art with other members of Team Super and Singh herself. There is also a game called Flappy Unicorn on the app, a parody version of the international hit mobile game, Flappy Bird.

Singh has collaborated with many famous faces in the entertainment business, such as Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson, Liza Koshy, Colleen Ballinger, Connor Franta, Anthony Padilla, Manny MUA, James Charles, Shane Dawson, Jenna Marbles, Stephanie McMahon, Hilary Duff, Machel Montano, Alicia Keys, Will Smith, Nick Jonas, Swoozie, FouseyTube, Priyanka Chopra and Selena Gomez.

Since becoming a YouTube phenomenon, some of her most popular videos have included "Types of Teachers at School", "How Girls Get Ready" and "How to Stop Parents from Comparing Kids", which features Colleen Ballinger as her character Miranda Sings.

Singh is well-known for her generosity, kindness and sense of humour. She is also known for her two most popular characters, exaggerated portrayals of her parents named Manjeet and Paramjeet Singh.

## Early Life

Singh was born and raised in Scarborough, Toronto. Her actual parents, Malwinder and Sukhwinder Singh, are originally from Punjab, India, and she was raised in the Sikh tradition. She has an elder sister named Tina. As a child, Singh has said she was a tomboy. She attended Mary Shadd Public School during her elementary years and in 2006, she graduated from Lester B. Pearson Collegiate Institute. In 2010, she graduated from York University with a Bachelor of Arts degree in Psychology. Singh developed a strong connection with her Punjabi heritage during visits to India. She struggled with depression, and began making YouTube videos as a way of dealing with her feelings. As a young adult, she lived with her parents in Markham, Ontario and in 2015, she moved to Los Angeles, California, where she currently resides, to further her career.

## 2010-Present: YouTube Career

In 2010, Singh started her YouTube channel under the pseudonym "IISuperwomanII". She thought this nickname would give her the strength to stand up for herself and rise to challenges as a child. Her videos quickly gained momentum and soon she was garnering hundreds of thousands of views on her videos. For several years during December, Singh has uploaded a series of videos under the umbrella of "12 Collabs of Xmas", in which she shoots 12 videos with different entertainment stars. So far she has collaborated in this videos with stars such as Markiplier, Joanne the Scammer, Jay Sean, Miranda Sings, Hilary Duff, Joey Graceffa, Rosanna Pansino, Connor Franta, Grace Helbig, Mamrie Hart and Jenna Marbles.

Other series of videos she has uploaded include "Types of People", "Indian Parents Explain" (where her parent characters Manjeet and Paramjeet explain taboo topics such as periods and how babies are made), and several music videos, including collaborations with Humble The Poet "#LEH" and "IVIVI", "Clean Up Anthem" featuring Sickick Music and her solo music project entitled "Voices".

In 2016, Singh launched the #GirlLove challenge, which aims to tackle girl-on-girl hate. In the series she interviews celebrities such as Michelle Obama, Bebe Rexha and Sabrina Carpenter about ways to diminish hatred between females. Another series is "Ask Superwoman Live" which occurs on the 14th of every month. In this usually 1-hour long livestream, Lilly answers questions from her fans on social media. These were renamed #LillyLIVE for a short period before being cancelled altogether in 2018.

Singh has reached 14 million subscribers and over 2.7 billion views. She also received the diamond play button for reaching 10 million subscribers on 25 September 2016 (the day before her birthday), however she didn't reach 10 million subscribers until exactly a month later on 25 October 2016. She also went on a world tour entitled "A Trip to Unicorn Island" in 2015 which encompassed 31 shows in many countries around the world. In early 2016, she released a documentary about the tour exclusively on YouTube Red. Singh has risen to become one of the most popular YouTubers and an icon of body positivity, loving yourself, peace, love, harmony and working hard. All of these factors and more are featured in *How to be a Bawse: A Guide to Conquering Life*, her debut book released on 28 March 2017.

In 2018 Lilly partnered with YouTube to release an advertisement to certain countries with information regarding helplines and support if somebody is involved in an act of violence, and released a video for her fans asking them to spread the word and help the cause themselves.

In November of 2018 Lilly announced a break from YouTube to focus on her mental health, as she had become unhappy with the content she was producing due to her altered mental state. Shortly after releasing the video, she changed her YouTube channel icon to an image with the acronym BRB (Be Right Back) against a black background; during her hiatus, Lilly remained active on social media. She returned to YouTube on 6 December with the release of the first of the 12 Collabs of Christmas for 2018, featuring James Charles; she then promptly changed her channel icon to her dressed as an elf to celebrate the holidays.

Despite announcing the September 2019 premiere of her late-night talk show *A Little Late with Lilly Singh*, Singh late confirmed she will still post comedy videos to her main channel.

## 2014-Present: Vlog Channel

Singh created a second vlog channel to uploaded extra videos and bloopers onto early in her YouTube career, but in August 2014 she decided to start vlogging daily to show her fans her life outside of her main channel videos. The channel has reached over 2 million subscribers and 200 million views. Since the beginning of her vlogs, Singh had titled them "The Time...", but in December of 2017 she changed this format because it was restricting the amount of content she was able to put into the video titles.

Popular videos on the channel include her impersonating Nicki Minaj, meeting Ariana Grande and Ed Sheeran at the 2014 MTV Europe Music Awards, meeting Selena Gomez and filming a collaboration video with her and moving to Los Angeles in December 2015.

Lilly temporarily stopped her vlogs in November 2018 as part of an indefinite YouTube hiatus, returning with a video showing the behind the scenes footage of her 12 Collabs of Christmas video with Dr. Phil. With the announcement of *A Little Late with Lilly Singh*, Lilly revealed that she will post videos about the creation of her talk show via her vlog channel.

## Other Ventures

### Makeup & Fashion

In 2016, Singh released a liquid lipstick with Smashbox Studios called "Bawse", which has been very popular in her fanbase. She announced the lipstick in a video entitled "Types of Commercials", which has now garnered over 10 million views. She has a merchandise series available from her website which features images and catchphrases from her videos. In 2017 and 2018 Lilly released several sets of new merchandise such as hoodies, t-shirts and replicas of the ring she wears on her finger, and in 2016 and 2017 supported the #GirlLove movement by releasing rafikis in support of female education in Kenya, inspired by a trip there in late 2016.

### Social Media

In terms of her own accounts, Lilly has Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat and Twitter pages which are all very popular, and her parent characters Manjeet and Paramjeet also have Twitter and Instagram accounts. In addition, her dog Scarbro has his own Instagram. Singh has made several videos relating to various forms of social media, such as "Types of People on Snapchat", "Why People Really Use Instagram" and "Annoying People on Twitter".

In February 2019, Singh publicly revealed her bisexuality via Twitter, and received overwhelming support from many celebrities, including James Charles and Shane Dawson. In August 2019, Singh changed her Instagram and Twitter handles to @Lilly, having previously been @IISuperwomanII, and detailed her reasons for the rebranding in a lengthy Instagram post.

#### Apps

On September 26 2013 (Singh's birthday), Lilly released the official "Superwoman App" and released several comedic promotional videos and advertisements that played at the end of her YouTube videos prior to its release. The app featured news about Lilly's channel, as well as images, audio tracks featuring some of Singh's famous quotes, and her YouTube videos themselves. The app was later taken down to make way for her Unicorn Island app.

In 2015, Singh released her own social media app, "Lilly Singh's Unicorn Island", a place for fans to share their artwork and thoughts on Lilly's content. The app also features a game called Flappy Unicorn, a parody version of the game Flappy Bird. Singh has often taken fan art and printed it on T-Shirts to wear in videos, and shouted-out high scorers on Flappy Unicorn. Lilly often uses the app herself to post about news, new videos and promote her favourite fan art. As of 2019 activity on the app has slowed as Lilly has moved onto other projects.

### Writing

Also in 2016, she announced on *The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon* that she was in the process of writing her first book, *How to be a Bawse: A Guide to Conquering Life*, which was released on 28 March 2017. It later topped *The New York Times* bestseller list for several weeks following its release. In Summer 2017 she embarked on a book tour around the world, known as the *How to Be a Bawse Book Tour*, promoting her book and performing in smaller venues than her previous 2015 tour. In addition to her book, Singh writes all of her main channel videos, as well as being known to have already written several pieces for her production company, and is currently collaborating with the writers on *A Little Late with Lilly Singh* to produce ideas and skits.

### Acting

In the film industry she has had several cameo appearances including *Ice Age: Collision Course* as two mini-corns and *Dr. Cabbie.* She also partnered with YouTube channel I Love Makeup to release a series called "Lana Steele: Makeup Spy", in which she appears as the titular character. Her own film, *A Trip to Unicorn Island*, is a documentary about her tour of the same name and was released to YouTube Red (now known as YouTube Premium) in February 2016. It was very successful on the platform. Later in 2016, she also made a cameo in the movie *Bad Moms*, releasing a #GirlLove video to promote the film with the main cast - Mila Kunis, Kristen Bell and Kathryn Hahn.

### Music

In August of 2013, Lilly was featured in Jassi Sidu's Punjabi song "Hipshaker". Through her YouTube channel she also released minor music videos such as "Stand Up" and "Similes and Metaphors". Her first major song was in collaboration with Humble the Poet, titled "#LEH". It was released in July 2014. The next year, she released another collaboration with Humble the Poet called "IVIVI", an homage to Toronto (IVIVI are the roman numerals for 416, Toronto's area code). In 2015 she also released a song with music producer Sickick titled "Clean Up Anthem". In 2016 she released a 10-minute musical project called "Voices", which depicts her feelings of boasting, loneliness, lust, goofiness and positive and peaceful propaganda encouraging people to stand up for those who cannot stand up for themselves. Collectively, all of her music videos have reached over 20 million views. In one of her Ask Superwoman videos from 2014, Lilly mentioned one of her favourite songs is "Super Bass" by Nicki Minaj.

In late 2017 Lilly dedicated a livestream to discussing her own favourite music (noting, for example, that her favourite 'sexy' song is "Dance for You" by Beyoncé) and, with the help of her fans via social media, created a Bollywood-themed playlist for Apple Music to join her other three curated playlists already on the platform. In 2018 Lilly announced she would love to pursue music further later on but is currently focusing on her production company and, as of 2019, her NBC late-night talk show.

In August 2019, Singh released the studio version of "Drop Splash Banana", a hip-hop parody of the trio Migos, to streaming services having released it in video form several months prior.

Singh often incorporates musical ventures into her videos; for example, in 2017 her parent characters released rap medleys with rewritten lyrics to songs such as "Humble" by Kendrick Lamar, "Bad and Boujee" by Migos and "Anaconda" by Nicki Minaj. In September 2018 Singh released a parody to Nicki Minaj's "Barbie Dreams" with lyrics roasting male YouTubers such as Swoozie, PewDiePie and Ryan Higa. Since release the music video has garnered over three million views.

#### Discography

##### *Singles*

2014: #LEH (with Humble the Poet)

2015: Clean Up Anthem (featuring Sickick)

2015: IVIVI (with Humble the Poet)

2019: Drop Splash Banana

##### *Other Songs*

2016: Voices (not available for purchase)

##### Notes

All three of her collaborative singles and her 2019 solo single are available for purchase on sites such as iTunes and Google Play, and can be streamed on sites like YouTube Music, Spotify and Apple Music, however "Voices" is only available in music video format on YouTube and cannot be purchased as a song.

### Producing

In 2018 Lilly officially announced her own production company named Unicorn Island Productions that focused on writing and producing short films, the first of which was horror-themed and was shown being written and shot on Lilly's vlog channel. The production company will also be involved with Singh's own NBC talk show, *A Little Late with Lilly Singh*. Polly Autt, head of development for Unicorn Island Productions, is serving as an executive producer on the show alongside Singh herself.

### Tours and Performances

Singh has been around the world in two major tours:

2015: A Trip to Unicorn Island Tour

2017: How to Be a Bawse Book Tour - in support of her book of the same name

In addition to touring, Singh has appeared at many YouTube- and social media-related conventions, including YouTube FanFest Mumbai and VidCon. She often holds meet-and-greets and participates in panels at conventions, and occasionally performs music as well.

### Television

Singh has appeared as a guest on several TV shows, such as *The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon, BBC News* and *The Daily Show*. In these interviews, she has discussed her book, tours, documentary and having an overall positive outlook on life. Both her book and NBC talk show were announced on *The Tonight Show*.

#### Talk Show

NBC announced in March 2019 that Singh will star in her own late-night talk show, *A Little Late with Lilly Singh*, to replace *Last Call with Carson Daly* in September 2019. In her video announcement on her main channel, Singh confirmed she will still post comedy videos on YouTube and will post videos detailing the creation of the show on her vlog channel. Through this medium, she has already introduced her audience to the show's writers and given an inside look as to how the show has been built from the ground up. It is expected to premiere on September 16, 2019.

## Videos

Some of Lilly's most popular videos include:

How Girls Get Ready

What Clubbing is Actually Like (featuring Liza Koshy)

How to Stop Parents from Comparing Kids (featuring Miranda Sings)

The Struggles of Having Long Hair

Types of Parents

## Related Articles

Paramjeet Singh

Manjeet Singh

Spice News

IISuperwomanII Wiki

#LEH

## Links

https://www.youtube.com/user/IISuperwomanII/ (YouTube channel)

https://twitter.com/IISuperwomanII (Twitter account)

https://instagram.com/iisuperwomanii (Instagram account)

https://www.lillysingh.com (Official website)

https://www.iisuperwomanii.co (Channel website)