Background

Avril Ramona Lavigne was born on September 27, 1984, in Belleville, a small city in the eastern part of the province of Ontario, Canada. Her father, John, was a technician for Bell Canada; mother Judy was a stay-at-home mom. When Lavigne was five, the family moved to Napanee, a farming town even smaller than Belleville with a total population of only five thousand.

Lavigne has an older brother Matthew and a younger sister Michelle. From the time she was a toddler, Lavigne idolized her older brother, Matt, and insisted on trying to do anything he could do. As she explained to Chris Willman of Entertainment Weekly, "If he played hockey, I had to play hockey. He played baseball, I wanted to." In fact, when Lavigne was ten she played in the Napanee boy's hockey league; she also became known as quite a baseball pitcher.

As she grew older Lavigne gained a reputation as a tomboy who preferred family outings like dirt biking or camping over dating. And in the tenth grade, she discovered skateboarding, which became a particular passion. "I'm just not a girlie-girl," Lavigne laughingly told Willman. When not playing sports, however, she did pursue another interest - singing.

The Lavignes were devout Christians and attended Evangel Temple in Napanee, where young Avril sang in the choir beginning at age ten. Soon she branched out and began singing at all types of venues, including county fairs, hockey games, and company parties. She primarily sang covers of songs made popular by country singers Martina McBride and Faith Hill. Lavigne's parents bought her a sound machine to sing along with, and she practiced in front of a mirror at home for hours.

Education

Avril Lavigne attended the Napanee District Secondary School. With her parents' permission, Lavigne then quit school and moved to New York City with her brother.

Career

In 1999, Lavigne tasted success for the very first time. She won a singing contest and took the stage alongside Shania Twain in Canada's capital, Ottawa.

In 1999, she was spotted by Cliff Fabri, who eventually became her first professional manager, while she was performing at a bookstore in Kingston, Ontario.

Lavigne's debut single Complicated catapulted her to fame, and she received appreciation from the critics as well. It peaked at number one in Australia and was the best-selling Canadian single in 2002.

In June 2002, Let Go, her first album, was released. It peaked at number two on US Billboard 200, and also featured on music charts in the United Kingdom, Canada, and Australia. She then set out on her first world tour called Try to Shut Me Up Tour.

In 2003, she received Grammy Award nominations for the album Let Go and for the single Complicated. That same year, Lavigne also achieved a Guinness World Record as being the youngest female solo artist to top the United Kingdom album chart. The album Let Go reached number one in its 18th chart week. Avril held the record until 2004.

In 2004, she came up with her second album Under My Skin. She wrote most of the songs along with Canadian singer-songwriter Chantal Kreviazuk. By the end of 2004, the twenty-year-old Lavigne was one of America's top-selling entertainers. Her face graced the covers of teen magazines like CosmoGIRL!, and she was featured in articles in such national magazines as Time and Newsweek. She also completed her second sold-out concert tour, the Bonez Tour, which was launched in October. Lavigne ended the year by appearing on the soundtracks of two films, The Princess Diaries 2: Royal Engagement and The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie.

In 2005, just three years after her debut album appeared, Lavigne was again the top-honored entertainer at Canada's Juno Awards. She received five nominations and took home three prizes, including the Best Artist award and a second win for Best Pop Album. Lavigne also announced that she would be adventuring more into film by lending her voice to a character in an animated movie called Over the Hedge, scheduled for a 2006 release.

In 2006, Lavigne performed her popular song Who Knows at the closing ceremony of Torino Olympics.

In 2007, she released her third album The Best Damn Thing. The single Girlfriend from the album became popular and rocked the music charts, peaking at number one on the US Billboard. Girlfriend was claimed to be the most-downloaded track worldwide in 2007 by The International Federation of the Phonographic Industry. It went on to sell more than seven million copies.

With her earnings soaring to $12 million in December 2007, Forbes ranked her eighth in the list of Top 20 Earners under 25.

Hard-working and smart, Lavigne was well aware of the fact that world tours would increase her popularity. In 2008, she went on her third world tour The Best Damn Tour to promote her album The Best Damn Thing.

In 2008, as an entrepreneur, she created a successful fashion and lifestyle brand called Abbey Dawn. She also came up with three fragrances, namely Black Star, Forbidden Rose, and Wild Rose.

In March 2011, her fourth album Goodbye Lullaby was released by RCA Records. Most of the songs from this album were written by Lavigne during her teenage years. She went on her fourth world tour Black Star Tour, performing in Asia, America, and Europe to promote her album.

Over the course of her four albums, Lavigne scored a string of hit singles, such as Complicated, Sk8er Boi, I'm With You, Losing Grip, Don't Tell Me, My Happy Ending, Nobody's Home, Keep Holding On, Girlfriend, When You're Gone, Hot, and The Best Damn Thing.

The single Here's to never growing up, from her much-talked-about self-titled album was released in 2013. The album Avril Lavigne was released in November 2013 by Epic Records and opened at number five at US Billboard 200. The single Hello Kitty from the album sparked controversies concerning racism.

Her sixth album Head Above Water was released in February 2019 by BMG label. While it peaked at the top 10 positions in countries like Australia, Canada, Germany, and Italy, it opened at number 13 on US Billboard 200, making it a moderate success in comparison with her previous albums.

Achievements

• Avril Lavigne is one of the biggest selling musicians worldwide with global album sales of over 70 million as of 2013. She is ranked as the eleven best-selling female recording artist of the decade in the United States with 16,4 million sold albums certified by the Recording Industry Association of America as of 2015. Lavigne is the biggest western artist in Asia especially Japan in which her first three albums went to sell over 1 million copies and in 2008 with The Best Damn Tour, she was the first western artist to do a full tour in China.
  
  Lavigne won the most MTV Latin Music Awards ever (Los Premios MTV) as an international act with 5, she is one of the biggest Canadians at the Juno Awards with 22 nominations winning 7 and the sixth female artist with the most MTV awards worldwide with 16 wins as of 2011. Lavigne holds the Guinness World Record title for the youngest female solo artist to have a number-one album in the United Kingdom and second artist in the United States history to have three No. 1 singles from a debut album on the Billboard Mainstream Top 40.
  
  Avril Lavigne has been nominated for eight Grammy Awards only in two years with her debut album, Let Go. Let Go is one of the few albums that got diamond certification in Canada.
  
  Lavigne's songs Complicated and Girlfriend were ranked as one of the Billboard Hot 100 singles of the decade. Girlfriend was the best selling song of 2007 worldwide with over 10 million copies. In 2008 the music video for Girlfriend became the most-watched video of all time and first video ever to reach 100,000,000 views on YouTube. This song is also the best selling song by Female Western Artist of All Time in Japan, sold more than 2 million copies.

Works

More photos

• book

  • Head Above Water 2019

• cartoon

  • Over the Hedge 2006

• music

  • Let Go 2002
  • Under My Skin 2004
  • The Best Damn Thing 2007
  • Goodbye Lullaby 2011
  • Avril Lavigne 2013

Religion

Although Lavigne's strict Catholic upbringing eventually soured her on attending church ("They were really long services, and I was always so hungry," she jokes), Lavigne says she still has her "own personal relationship with God, where I'm not a crazy Bible-thumper, but I do have faith."

Politics

Avril Lavigne once said: "I don't believe war is a way to solve problems. I think it’s wrong. I don’t have respect for the people that made the decisions to go on with war. I don't have that much respect for Bush. He's about war, I'm not about war - a lot of people aren't about war."

She supports Amnesty International and charities to benefit child victims of war to Make-a-Wish and Starlight Children's Foundation. She also recorded a version of Bob Dylan's "Knocking on Heaven’s Door" for a CD in support of British-based children's charity War Child.

Views

Avril Lavigne has been the subject of a conspiracy theory that states that she committed suicide in 2003, and was replaced by a body double. In an interview with Australia's KIIS 106.5 in November 2018, she responded to the rumor, calling it "weird."

Lavigne's list of charities and philanthropic contributions is long and varied. Avril recorded a John Lennon song for a CD compilation to raise funds for Amnesty International. She also supports charities such as the Make A Noise Foundation, AmericanCPR.org, Camp Will-a-Way, Music Clearing Minefields, US Campaign for Burma. She has also appeared in ALDO ads with YouthAIDS to raise money to educate people worldwide about HIV/AIDS. She performed at a Prince's Trust event, London Party in the Park. Lavigne donated items for the Grammy online charity auction benefiting the Grammy Foundation and MusiCares. She worked with Reverb, a non-profit environmental organization, for her 2005 East Coast tour. Lavine created The Avril Lavigne Foundation to support sick and disabled children.

Quotations: "I created Punk for this day and age. Do you see Britney walking around wearing ties and singing punk? Hell no. That's what I do. I'm like a Sid Vicious for a new generation."

"Why should I care what other people think of me? I am who I am. And who I wanna be."

"I'm very free-spirited and crazy. I love to have fun, and I like doing stupid things. At the same time, I'm like a 35-year-old. I have a house. I have a car. I have a steady job. I have a business, and I have to make serious decisions."

"You get built up and put on a pedestal and then people want to bring you down. It can be hurtful. Some people try to make me look bad or not a nice person but it's completely false."

"I'm very comfortable with how I look. I always have been. I think I look pretty good. There's nothing I want to change. I'm pretty happy with what I've got."

Membership

• The foundation supports ill and disabled children and youth.

  The Avril Lavigne Foundation

Personality

Avril Lavigne is a big gothic fan. She conjures a brooding, gothic vibe in her "I Fell in Love with the Devil" music video. Moreover, she had a Gothic wedding with the Nickelback frontman Chad.

"I decorated my house like a medieval gothic castle, European-style. Chandeliers and red velvet curtains. My bedroom is pink and black, my bathroom is totally Hello Kitty, I have a massive pink couch and a big antique gold cross," she said once.

Physical Characteristics: Lavigne was diagnosed with a severe case of Lyme disease in 2014 and took a break from performing and recording to recuperate.

Avril's diet is sugar-free, yeast-free, dairy-free, gluten-free, and all organic. Her favorite "cheat day" food is a Canadian dish called poutine. It's melted curd cheese on french fries with gravy.

Interests

• Reading, playing video games, painting

• Writers

  Twilight by Stephenie Meyer

• Artists

  Sandra Bullock, Tobey Maguire

• Sport & Clubs

  Skateboarding, hockey, baseball, yoga

• Music & Bands

  Christmas music, Nirvana, Goo Goo Dolls, Third Eye Blind

Connections

Avril Lavigne was married to the frontman of the popular rock band Sum 41, Deryck Whibley from 15 July 2006 to 16 November 2010.

In July 2013, she married fellow Canadian musician Chad Kroeger, the frontman of the band Nickelback. They got separated in 2015.

Father:

John Lavigne

Mother:

Judy Lavigne

Brother:

Matthew Lavigne

Sister:

Michelle Lavigne

ex-spouse:

Deryck Whibley

ex-spouse:

Chad Kroeger

colleague:

Cliff Fabri

In 1999, Cliff Fabri became Avril Lavigne's first professional manager, while she was performing at a bookstore in Kingston, Ontario.

References

• Avril Lavigne by Kathleen Tracy
  2004