Colleen Ballinger is a very likable American actress and a comedian who is also known as a great Youtuber and a singer.
She is most recognized for her character role as Miranda Sings which eventually became a Netflix TV show.
Early years
Colleen was born as Colleen Mae Ballinger on November 21, 1986, in Santa Barbara, California in the United States.
She was raised in a loving family which is made of her father Tim Ballinger, her mother Gwen and three siblings with whom she has spent a very pleasant childhood.
Her father works as a sales manager and her mother is a housewife who had spent all of her time carrying for the family and making their lives easier.
Colleen has a great relationship with her parents and all of her siblings: older brothers Trent and Christopher and her younger sister Rachel whom she adores.
Rachel and Christopher also started working on Youtube and today they both have over a million subscribers each.
Colleen had been homeschooled all through middle school but ultimately enrolled at San Marcos High School.
Later she continued her education at Azusa Pacific University and she graduated from there in 2008. Her major was vocal performance and she excelled in it.
In the period from 2007 to 2009, Colleen earned her money by performing for The Walt Disney Company in Disney Studio in California. She also coached piano to children. Colleen decided to perform at parties too.
Career development
In 2009, she succeeded in getting into “High School Musical” Original movie where she gained the role of Kelsi. In 2010 and 2011, she appeared on two different albums by two different artists, Tim Prottey-Jones and Chris Passey.
In the summer of 2011 she had a role of Lynda Bird Johnson in “First Kids” and at the end of the same year she gained a role in an off-Broadway play titled “Odyssey-The Epic Musical”
In 2012, she appeared in her first web-series. It was “Dr. Fubalous” and she played a part of nurse Royal.
She was very excited about it and she loved that she is doing something she adores: acting.
In 2013, she again appeared in a web shows called “The Flipside” and “Hipsterhood”.
“Hipsterhood” was made by Shilpy Roy, an Indian-American movie director who made nineteen episodes of this series about hipsters in the USA.
She was invited to MTV’s “True Life” the same year. It is a documentary made by MTV which discloses the lives of young people in the entertainment industry. She appeared in an episode “I’m Famous Online”.
Next year, in 2014, she acted in “Wedding Plans!” Web series.
In 2015 she had co-hosted her first TV talk show “The View”.
Colleen joined two The View’s hosts: Nicole Wallace and Rosie O’Donnell, and another guest host Michelle Williams in her TV show debut.
The four women discussed the New England Patriots and the controversy about the use of deflated balls during the playoffs of NFL.
They also reached the subject of cyber-bullying and spoke about first kisses.
Ballinger spoke about her little fiancé dispute about the pronunciation of the word “eggs” which caused laughter.
After the show, Colleen had to go backstage and answer to her fans questions on Instagram.
A few months later she appeared in a video by Todrick Hall, named “Beauty and the Beat Roots”.
As for the online work she has starred in “#HeyUSA” web series, hosted by Mamrie Hart.
Colleen was also featured on “Clouds” single named “I Want To Touch You” in Flula Borg’s EP in 2015.
In 2016, she had a role in commercials of “DiGiorno” pizza and it brought her high popularity widely.
In 2018 she starred in “Escape The Night” web series and in an animated movie “Ralph Breaks The Internet”.
Her big success was a part of the music video by Ariana Grande named “Thank U, Next”.
The pregnant woman in “Thank U, Next” video is Colleen who clearly stands out from the crowd because of her third trimester.
She is one of the cheerleaders in the video and dances with them.
Miranda Sings was a guest on “Victorious”, Ariana Grande’s TV show where her career kicked off so the two of them know each other long.
Colleen guest appeared in five episodes of “Victorious” in 2012.
In “Thank U, Next” Colleen dances with known girls such as Courtney Chipolone and Alexa Luria together with Nekai Johnson and some other girls and at the end of the video Ariana kisses her belly.
Colleen and Ariana collaborated a lot and have shared videos of private celebrations like birthdays.
Colleen also made vlogs which included members of Ariana’s family (Frankie Grande was in one of her videos).
Their earliest work was in 2009 when they sang together for a musical named Rent. They sang “Take Me Or Leave Me”.
In fact, one such video actually dates all the way back to 2009, when Grande and Ballinger were just a couple of Broadway babies singing “Take Me Or Leave Me” from the musical Rent.
Colleen always spoke about Ariana like she was her real sister. She stated that Ariana Grande’s family helped her a lot and gave her a place to stay in Bew York and also believed in her as a comedian.
In 2009, Colleen started her career with her character Miranda Sings in a one-woman comedy act.
They were all live performed and she soon became famous.
She was also a part of “The Colleen & Josh Show” in 2015 and 2016. They have toured together all over the country and earned a lot of money.
She has her own YouTube channel where she posted thousands of videos, challenges, and discussions. She currently has over 8 million subscribers.
She also has “Miranda Sings” Youtube channel with over 10 million subscribers.
She opened her third channel named “Colleen Vlogs” and amassed 2 million subscribers.
Her channel began growing in 2013 and haven’t stopped from then.
She has her own merchandise which can be bought on her website named mirandasings.com.
She has promoted several brands, such as “Jack in the Box” restaurants.
In 2010, Colleen decided to relocate to NYC because she thought she would have more chances here.
She came back home in 2012, realizing that the key to success is her Youtube channel.
In 2019, Ballinger has released her first Christmas EP and it was named “Christmas With Miranda Sings”.
She had many roles as Miranda Sings: in a comedy movie “Varla Jean”, in “Victorious”, in “Dance Chat” web series, in “Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee” by famous Jerry Seinfeld.
Colleen is a big philanthropist and tries to help people as much as they can.
In 2015, she raised funds for children battling with cancer and in 2016 she helped individual families with money for medical treatments of their children.
In 2015 she won two Teen Choice Awards: for Choice Web Star in Comedy and as Best Actress. She is currently nominated for 11th Shorty Awards. “The Gersh Agency” is her management agency.
She starred with her husband on “Haters Back Off” Netflix series. Their son is named Flynn Timothy Stocklin.
One of her distinctive features is a common use of the phrase “Haters, back off”.
In 2015, she released a book with an interesting name: “Self-Help”. The book as a huge hit and was a Bestseller of the NY Times.
Collen wrote it together with her brother Christopher Ballinger, and it was released by Simon & Schuster.
The book is not really a self-help book but a parody of one.
The book is loaded with silly advice and comic artwork.
Colleen is so successful that her “Miranda Sings” comedy channel was at the 7th place and her second channel named “Psychosoprano” was on the 17th place of all YouTube channels related to comedy.
Colleen has a very high yearly income due to her wide area of work. Other than the money she receives from her Youtube channel she also receives endorsement money, money from various commercials (such as DiGiorno Pizza) and money from her comedy gigs.
Colleen’s fans are named “Mirfandas.” She is very grateful to them and she often mentions them in her interview.
In 2016, in her interview for “The Verge”, she stated that she has received thousands of letters from children others consider different. She says she is happy that she helped them to build their confidence by her character of Miranda.
Personal life
In 2015, she got married to Joshua Evans whom she has dated for several years but they got divorced after only one year of marriage.
They both spoke about it on social media and Colleen even posted a 10-minute video about it on her Youtube channel.
They stated that they want their privacy kept but since they are very public personalities it is very hard for them to keep their privacy.
Joshua David Evans got married to Pamela Rose Rodriguez in 2018 and it seems that they have a very good marriage together.
Ballinger decided to move somewhere else so she had bought herself a house in Encino in California and there she met Erik Stocklin.
They have worked together but started dating in 2018. They got married the same year and today have a son who was born in winter 2018. Their son’s name is Flynn Timothy Stocklin and was born on December 13th, 2018, three weeks before he was supposed to be.
Three days later, Colleen has posted a birth video on her channel which soon gathered over 10M views in a short period of time.
Erik Flynn Stocklin, who was born in 1982, is an actor who appeared in a TV series “Stalker” from 2014 but gained a bigger role in “Haters Back Off”.
Her brother Christopher has his own YouTube channel called “BallingersPresent”. He is a magician and has Magic Mondays.
Chris has released his own DVD named “The Shark and Monarch”.
He hosted Colleen in a lot of his videos and family vlogs. He also hosted other members of the family.
In 2014, Chris collaborated with Joshua Evans, Colleen’s former husband.
They have made a video titled “Improv Duet Challenge with Joshua Evans.”
Quick summary
Full name: Colleen Mae Ballinger
Date of birth: November 21, 1986
Birthplace: Santa Barbara, California, United States
Age: 33
Profession: actress, comedian
Height: 168 cm
Weight: 54 kgs
Net Worth: $8 million