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Stacy Ann Ferguson (born March 27, 1975), better known by her stage name Fergie, is an American pop/R&B singer-songwriter, actress and rapper. She is a former member of the kids' television series Kids Incorporated, and the girl group Wild Orchid. Ferguson was also a co-host of the television show Great Pretenders. She is currently a vocalist for the hip hop/pop group the Black Eyed Peas, as well as a solo artist, releasing her debut album, The Dutchess, in 2006. The album has so far spawned three U.S. Billboard Hot 100 number one singles and five Top 5 hits, making The Dutchess the seventh album from a female artist to spawn five Top 5 hits. From child celebrity to sexy singer, Stacy Ferguson had the pipes to carry her to the top of the pop music elite. Although she started out as a child actor on “Kids Incorporated,” she grew into a sexy, auburn-tressed performer who successfully segued into the music business – coping with a series of personal struggles along the way – before reconnecting with her talents. As a result, the aptly nicknamed “Fergie” finally found the right career moves with the innovative hip-hop duo, the Black Eyed Peas and in her reign as “The Dutchess” – enough so, that she could take time off from music to reconnect with her acting roots, starring in Quentin Tarantino’s big screen gorefest, “Grindhouse” (2007). Ferguson was born in Hacienda Heights, California, the daughter of Terri Jackson (née Gore) and Patrick Ferguson. She has one sister, Dana, who is an actress. Her parents are Roman Catholics of Irish, Scottish and Mexican descent. The daughter of devout Catholic schoolteachers, she was raised in a suburban area with strict Roman Catholic values while attending Glen A. Wilson High School and Mesa Robles Middle school. She is quoted as saying that as a child she was so hyperactive, doctors wanted to put her on Ritalin until her mom vetoed the idea. She and her younger sister, Dana, were then raised locally in Hacienda Heights by their mother and father, both public school teachers. As a kid, Ferguson’s parents introduced her to the arts, taking their daughter to see various musicals and classic Motown and R&B artists in concert. Ferguson’s show business career began early, when, at age eight, she landed a commercial agent and began appearing in various television spots, including doing voiceover work for animated specials, like providing the voice of Sally Brown on “It's Flashbeagle, Charlie Brown” (CBS, 1984). Through dance school, her mom found her an agent and voiceover work, providing the voices for Lucy and Sally in Peanuts cartoons. From 1984 to 1989, she spent summers performing chart hits on the TV show Kids Incorporated. All that time she was a straight-A student. She was even a spelling bee champion. She has struggled with drug addiction admitting to past use of both ecstasy and crystal meth. As a child actress, Ferguson appeared on the television program Kids Incorporated for several years with Renee Sandstrom, who became a fellow member of Wild Orchid. On the show, the actress displayed her singing talents, singing Whitney Houston's "One Moment In Time". Ferguson was the voice of Sally Brown in two Charlie Brown specials: It's Flashbeagle, Charlie Brown (1984), and Snoopy's Getting Married, Charlie Brown (1985). At the end of October 1996, Wild Orchid’s first self-titled record was released. The album failed to chart high, however, peaking at #153 on its Top 200, but its three singles “At Night I Pray,” “Supernatural” and “Talk to Me” still led to a platinum album. Almost two years and a tour with N’Sync and 98 Degrees later, a second album, Oxygen fared less successfully, leading the intended third album, Fire, to be scrapped. Unhappy with the musical direction and the pressure from the label, Ferguson left the group and found solace in the underground scene of her native Los Angeles, where she began the inevitable dabbling in drugs. A run-in with ecstasy and crystal methamphetamine soon ballooned into a full-fledged addiction, with Ferguson also spiraling into major credit debt. Down to a dangerous weight of 90 pounds at one point, she had shielded her drug problems under admissions of bulimia, finally deciding to seek help after a religious epiphany led her to reassess the value of her singing abilities. After temporarily moving in with her mother, Ferguson looked to land on her feet again. She utilized amassed frequent flier miles to meet up with various music producers and began laying down new demos. Shortly after, Ferguson received a fateful phone call. Midway through recording of its third album, Elephunk, L.A. hip-hop artists the Black Eyed Peas asked her to add vocals to the cut “Shut Up.” A big fan of the Peas, Ferguson had made it a point to bump into the group backstage at her final Wild Orchid performance, telling frontman Will.I.Am about her interest in working together in some capacity. As the Peas’ back-up singer Kim Hill had left in 2000, Will.I.Am called Ferguson. Things went so well that the group had her sing on other tracks as well, until at the suggestion of Interscope Records chief Jimmy Iovine, she was asked to join full time. At first, the group was wary of shaking things up, but went with it. The two year recording process for the album was finally completed in May 2003 and the album was released on new label A&M a month later. The transition to mainstream act was somewhat bumpy at first. Though the addition of the now-dubbed Fergie brought a more commercial look and sound; hence a wider audience, hardcore devotees of the Peas’ previous two albums were not pleased with the new lineup. Elephunk became a huge hit, regardless, selling eight million copies globally. “Shut Up” was released as a single, as was the wildly successful “Where is the Love?” The latter featured additional vocals from former N’Syncer, Justin Timberlake, who at 17, had been Ferguson’s boyfriend. One of the album’s tracks, “Let’s Get Retarded” was changed for radio to the more palatable “Let’s Get it Started” – and the song single-handedly put the band on the mainstream map. Also a plus: Fergie’s eclectic combination of sex appeal and retro, hip-hop fashion made her a media sensation, proving to be a good match for the Peas. Everything was so in alignment, that by early 2004, the group members filmed cameos as themselves in the cinematic adaptation of Elmore Leonard’s “Be Cool” (2005), starring John Travolta and Uma Thurman. Aside from her newfound musical success, Fergie’s personal life also hit a new high when she met actor Josh Duhamel of “Las Vegas” fame (NBC, 2003- ) in September of 2004 and the two coupled up. Having reconnected with her childhood career, Fergie’s onscreen prospects continued into 2005, as she was slated to star in the Revolution Studios remake of the horror classic “The Fog (2005). She later dropped out of the film, but that year finally saw the fruits of the Peas’ hard work, when the group was Grammy nominated for Record of the Year and won for Best Rap Performance by a Duo or Group. Not letting up for a minute, June 2005 saw the release of The Black Eyed Peas’ second album, the multi-platinum Monkey Business, which would yield six singles, including “Don’t Phunk with My Heart” and “My Humps.” Also that year, Fergie filmed a small role in the big-budget remake “Poseidon” (2006) – as the ship’s pre-tidal wave musical entertainment – before rejoining her bandmates for more touring. The Peas meanwhile nabbed four 2006 Grammy nominations, winning in the same Best Rap Performance category as the year before for the song, “My Humps.” While still promoting the album, Fergie signed a deal with the Peas’ label A&M and began working on material for a solo album with executive producers Will.I.Am and Polow Da Don. The album, The Dutchess, a continuation of the Peas’ trademark hip hop, pop and R&B stylings, was released in September to mixed reviews. But Fergie’s popularity with the masses was undeniable, and the album – which spawned three hit singles, including “Fergielicious,” “Glamorous” and “London Bridge” – shot up to the number three slot on the Billboard charts. In July 2003, Ferguson had a guest role on the Rocket Power special, Reggie's Big Beach Break, on Nickelodeon; she voiced a fictitious pop music star named Shaffika. In March 2005, casting for Revolution Studios's big-budget remake of John Carpenter's The Fog was underway. Ferguson was set to return to acting in the role of lighthouse radio deejay Stevie Wayne (a part originated by scream queen Adrienne Barbeau). A last minute conflict arose, preventing her contract from closing and Ferguson left the project. The role eventually went to Selma Blair. Ferguson finally returned to acting in 2006, appearing as lounge singer Gloria in Wolfgang Peterson's remake of The Poseidon Adventure. She later appeared in 2007's Grindhouse. 2007 was a good year for Fergie. As if a successful solo career and Grammy Award with her beloved band was not good enough, Fergie, i.e. Sarah Ferguson, took a dip in the acting pool again after being tapped by writer-director Robert Rodriguez to play the role of Tammy Visan in his zombiefied half of “Grindhouse” (2007) – a double bill b-movie send-up co-directed with Quentin Tarantino. In Rodriguez’s film “Planet Terror” viewers cheered as the scantily clad and buffed up Ferguson was torn apart by zombies to graphic effect. Although the film did not do well upon its April release many felt, because it was a double bill it developed an instant fanboy following and an essence of cool washed over anyone connected with the project. Ferguson was a member of the female trio Wild Orchid, which she fronted with Stefanie Ridel and fellow Kids Incorporated star Renee Sandstrom. Wild Orchid released two albums, but after completing a third album, their record label declined to release it, and she left the group shortly thereafter. Her disappointment with Wild Orchid led to an addiction to crystal methamphetamine. In September 2006, Ferguson talked with Time about quitting her crystal meth addiction. "It was the hardest boyfriend I ever had to break up with," she says. "It's the drug that's addicting. But it's why you start doing it in the first place that's interesting. A lot of it was being a child actor; I learned to suppress feelings." In 2003, the Black Eyed Peas were recording their third album, 2003's Elephunk, when Will.i.am invited Fergie to try out for a song called Shut Up (Black Eyed Peas song). She got the gig and instantly bonded with the trio to record five additional songs on the album. In the following spring, shortly before Elephunk came out, Interscope chairman Jimmy Iovine had offered Ferguson a permanent spot to take over vocal duties and fill the spot left void by background singer Kim Hill, who had left the group in 2000. When Will of the group was asked to sum up his bandmates, he called Fergie the "body" of the group. In 2005, Ferguson inadvertently urinated on stage during a performance at San Diego's Street Scene festival. Ferguson later commented on the incident: "I had a few drinks before the show, but I didn't think to go to the bathroom before we went onstage. We were jumping around...and my bladder just started." In December 2007, Blender picked Ferguson as their woman of the year. During the 2008 Idol Gives Back, she performed a duet with Ann Wilson of Heart. The two (with Nancy Wilson on guitar) performed "Barracuda". On April 23, 2008, her song Labels or Love leaked onto the internet. The song was recorded for the upcoming Sex and the City: The Movie soundtrack. In an Entertainment Weekly interview, director and writer Michael Patrick King stated that "it’s an entirely new song with lyrics, but it has the Sex and the City theme as the DNA on steroids.” After two successful Black Eyed Peas albums, Ferguson began pursuing a solo career. Her first album, released on September 19, 2006, was entitled The Dutchess. The album's name is a misspelled variant of the former title of Sarah Ferguson, the Duchess of York, with whom Ferguson shares a surname and popular nickname. The solo deal does not mean the demise of the Black Eyed Peas, as Ferguson intends to remain with the group, alternating between the two duties. The Dutchess is similar in style to that of the Black Eyed Peas, as fellow Peas member will.i.am is the album's executive producer. Ferguson has had six hit songs from The Dutchess, with "London Bridge", "Fergalicious", "Glamorous", "Big Girls Don't Cry" ,"Clumsy", and "Finally" becoming number one singles. Her second single, "Fergalicious", peaked at #2. "London Bridge" reached #2 on the United World Chart, while "Fergalicious" and "Glamorous" both made it to #4. "Big Girls Don't Cry" became Ferguson's first worldwide #1 single, and is her most successful single to date. "Clumsy" was announced as the fifth single from The Dutchess after the major international success of "Big Girls Don't Cry". Ferguson has received her fifth Top 5 solo track from The Dutchess after "Clumsy" earned at #5 position on the Billboard Hot 100, on 22 December 2007. On November 18, 2007, Ferguson won the Pop or Rock "Favorite Female Artist" at the American Music Awards. Ferguson appeared at Wembley Stadium on 1 July 2007, performing "Glamorous" and "Big Girls Don't Cry" in a concert for the late Princess Diana put on by her two sons Prince William and Prince Harry; the DVD of the concert was released 5 November 2007. Ferguson is engaged to actor Josh Duhamel, who stars in the television show Las Vegas. They met, and began dating, in September 2004 when she and her band appeared on Duhamel's show (in an episode titled "Montecito Lancers", which aired on November 1, 2004). Ferguson and Duhamel have recently purchased a house together. In April 2007, she gave an interview in which she admitted that she went on a sex and drugs spree when she turned 18, saying: "I have had lesbian experiences in the past. I won't say how many men I've had sex with but I am a very sexual person." In December 2007 when asked "Bisexuality and homosexuality are often either frowned or mocked upon in certain circles. Does that bother you?", she replied "No, it doesn’t bother me. I’m just me". Ferguson was featured on Maxim's Hot 100 Women of 2006, and voted in at position #36. In 2007, she was voted in at #10. |
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