Rebecca Black

Rebecca Renee Black (born June 21, 1997 ) is an American singer, songwriter, and YouTuber.

Rebecca Renee Black was born on June 21, 1997, in Irvine, California.

She is the daughter of John Jeffery Black and Georgina Marquez Kelly, both veterinarians.

Her mother is a Mexican emigrant, and her father, originally from Iowa, is of English, Italian, and Polish descent.

Black attended private school from kindergarten to 6th grade, and moved to a public school due to bullying.

She joined the school's musical theater program, where she felt she was "meant to be".

In late 2010, a classmate of Black and music video client of Los Angeles record label ARK Music Factory told her about the company.

Black's mother paid US$4,000 for ARK Music to produce the music video while the Blacks retained ownership of both the master and the video.

The single, "Friday", written entirely by ARK, was released on YouTube and iTunes.

She gained extensive media coverage when the music video for her 2011 debut single "Friday" went viral on YouTube and various social media sites.

The song peaked at number 58 on the Billboard Hot 100 amidst being panned by audiences and music critics, many of whom considered it "among the worst songs ever made".

In April 2011, Black dropped out in favor of homeschooling, citing both a need to focus on her career.

Black has said that she was also failing English class due to her busy schedule.

The song's video was uploaded to YouTube on February 10, 2011, and received approximately 1,000 views in the first month.

The video went viral on March 11, acquiring millions of views on YouTube in a matter of days, becoming the most discussed topic on social networking site Twitter, and garnering mostly negative media coverage.

The single was released on March 14, with first-week sales estimated to be around 40,000 by Billboard. On March 22, Black appeared on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno, during which she performed the song and discussed the negative reaction to it.

The song peaked on the Billboard Hot 100 and the New Zealand Singles Chart at numbers 58 and 33, respectively.

In the UK, the song debuted at number 61 on the UK Singles Chart.

In response to the YouTube video of "Friday", Black began to receive phone and email death threats, which were investigated by the Anaheim Police Department.

Black teamed up with Funny or Die on April Fools' Day 2011 (when the comedy site was renamed Friday or Die) for a series of videos, including one about the underage teens driving a car in her "Friday" video.

She signed to manager Debra Baum's DB Entertainment, reportedly with Ryan Seacrest's help.

Black stated that she is a fan of Justin Bieber, and expressed interest in performing a duet with him.

MTV selected Black to host its first online awards show, the O Music Awards Fan Army Party, in April 2011.

As an homage to "Friday", Black appeared in the music video for Katy Perry's "Last Friday Night (T.G.I.F.)", in which Black plays alongside Perry as the hostess of a party Perry attends.

A cover version of "Friday" was performed on Glee in the second-season episode, "Prom Queen".

When asked about why the song was covered on Glee, show creator Ryan Murphy replied, "The show pays tribute to pop culture and, love it or hate it, that song is pop culture."

Not long after the "Friday" video went viral on YouTube, Black and her mother, Georgina Kelly, got into legal issues with ARK Music over rights to the song.

In a letter from Kelly's lawyer to ARK Music on March 29, 2011, it was alleged that ARK Music failed to fulfill the terms of their November 2010 agreement by not giving her the song and video's master recordings, by claiming Black as exclusively signed to the label, and by exploiting the song without permission – for example, selling a "Friday" ringtone.

While Ark founder (and "Friday" co-writer) Patrice Wilson stated that Kelly "will get the masters and the song [...] [t]hey can have it all", and agreed that Black was not exclusive to Ark, his attorney claimed that Ark owns the copyright for the song and the November agreement is invalid.

In June 2011, ARK Music Factory started charging US$2.99 2011 to watch the music video on YouTube.

Later that month, "Friday" was removed as a result of the legal dispute; it was restored to YouTube on September 16, 2011, on Black's official channel.

"Friday" was revealed as YouTube's No. 1 video of 2011, with Black hosting a short video called YouTube Rewind in the year-end recap.

The video received more than 167 million views and more than 3,190,000 "dislikes" during its first four months, prior to its temporary removal.

After the fallout with ARK Music Factory, Black started an independent record label named RB Records.

Black released a self-produced single titled "My Moment" on July 18, 2011, the first on her label, with an accompanying music video published to her YouTube channel the same day.

In the video, director Morgan Lawley features real life footage of Black from both before and after the popularization of "Friday".

In late October 2011, production began on the music video for Black's third single, "Person of Interest".

In 2013, Black released a follow up single "Saturday" (with Dave Days) to similar commercial success and marginally improved reception.

Black has also pursued a career as a YouTube personality.

Her debut studio album Let Her Burn—preceded by two extended plays—was released in February 2023 to generally favorable critical reception.