Todrick Hall

Growing up on a small farm in Plainview, Texas, Todrick Hall started singing at the age of ten and began his career performing on cruise ships and at theme parks, before landing a role in the ensemble cast of the Broadway production The Color Purple. After four years in the Tony Award-winning show, he entered auditions for American Idol in 2010 and reached the semi-finals of the TV talent contest by wowing the judges with renditions of Queen's Somebody To Love and Tina Turner's What's Love Got To Do With It. Despite his success, stardom didn't come calling and he found himself back in Texas, flat broke and pondering his future. It led him to posting comedy and performance videos online, and his YouTube following soon reached over two million subscribers. His flamboyant re-working of The Wizard Oz, in particular, proved a massive viral hit and he ended up choreographing the video for Beyoncé's Blow, making flash-mobs with Arianna Grande and starring in his own reality show for MTV. In 2013 he released the Christmas record Dear Santa, featuring covers of Sleigh Bells, So Cold and Rudolph and followed it up with video album Straight Outta Oz, which included guest appearances from Nicole Scherzinger, Jordin Sparks and Jay Armstrong Johnson. He also featured on television show RuPaul's Drag Race as a judge and in 2016 returned to Broadway in the lead role of the musical Kinky Boots.