Curated playlist

21st-century American LGBTQ people

Lady GagaLady Gaga's name may have come from a phone typo. Producer Rob Fusari said autocorrect turned "Radio Ga Ga" into "Lady".
Kristen StewartKristen Stewart is an American actress and filmmaker who says she was never the child who dreamed of fame. She was not, in her words, the "I want to be famous, I want to be an actor" kid. Still, one small habit of celebrity came to her…
Marlon BrandoMarlon Brando sold back his Godfather profit points for $100,000, a sum that cost him an estimated $11 million.
Little RichardLittle Richard walked away from rock and roll to study theology. A fireball over Sydney in 1957 shook him.
Charlie SheenCharlie Sheen was the highest-paid actor on television in 2010, earning US$1.8 million for every episode of the sitcom Two and a Half Men. He had been born Carlos Irwin Estévez, and he grew up in a household where acting was the family…
Fergie (singer)Fergie, born Stacy Ann Ferguson, sang on a song that held the top spot on the Billboard Hot 100 for 14 straight weeks in 2009. That song, "I Gotta Feeling," stayed at number one longer than any other song that year. By then her records had…
Queen LatifahQueen Latifah picked her name from a book of Arabic names at age eight. She added the title "Queen" herself.
Tyler, the CreatorAt the age of seven, Tyler Gregory Okonma, known professionally as Tyler, the Creator, was already making albums that did not exist. He pulled the covers out of CD cases and made new ones for imaginary records, each with a tracklist and…
Angelina JolieAngelina Jolie has appeared in films that grossed more than $6.9 billion worldwide, and Hollywood has named her its highest-paid actress several times. As a teenager, though, she took at-home courses on embalming because she hoped to…
Jeremy CrawfordJeremy Crawford left Wizards of the Coast in April 2025 after the revised Dungeons & Dragons rulebooks came out.
Miley CyrusMiley Cyrus was eight years old when she grabbed her father's arm in a Toronto theatre. In 2001 the family lived in Toronto while Billy Ray Cyrus filmed the television series Doc. He took her to see a Mirvish production of Mamma Mia! at…
Cardi BCardi B reached number one on the Billboard Hot 100 chart dated the 25th of September 2017, with a song called "Bodak Yellow." No solo female rapper had topped that chart since Lauryn Hill's "Doo Wop (That Thing)" in 1998. The woman behind…
Megan Thee StallionMegan Thee Stallion's mother took her to recording sessions instead of daycare.
Billie EilishBillie Eilish was 18 years old when she left the 62nd Annual Grammy Awards in 2020 holding all four of the ceremony's general field prizes. Only one person had done that before her, and no woman had. Not long before, she had been a…
Demi LovatoDemi Lovato, an American singer, songwriter and actress, sang the national anthem at Super Bowl LIV in 2020. Eighteen years earlier, in 2002, Lovato was a child playing a character named Angela on the children's series Barney & Friends.…
ND StevensonA class assignment at art school became the webcomic Nimona. It later became a National Book Award finalist.
KeshaKesha's big break in 2009 came from walking into a recording session by accident.
Megan FoxIn 2010, the American actress Megan Fox said something few stars say about their own fame: "My biggest regret is that I've assisted the media in making me into a cartoon character." She added that she did not regret what had happened to…
Halsey (singer)Halsey, the stage name of Ashley Nicolette Frangipane, once looked at a bank account holding nine dollars. She spent it on a four-pack of Red Bull. The caffeine kept her awake for two or three days, because she judged sleeping somewhere…
Jennifer HigdonJennifer Higdon taught herself flute from an old method book. She later won the 2010 Pulitzer Prize for Music.
Kevin SpaceyLate in the 1995 thriller Se7en, Kevin Spacey walks into the story as the serial killer John Doe, and most of the audience had no idea he was coming. His name was missing from the opening credits. It was missing from the film's…
Scott BessentScott Bessent won Senate confirmation as United States secretary of the treasury on the 27th of January 2025, by a vote of 68-29. On that same day, a man carrying several Molotov cocktails and a knife, who intended to murder him, was…
Gillian AndersonGillian Anderson was arrested on her graduation night. She had broken into her own high school in Grand Rapids, Michigan, hoping to glue the locks of its doors shut. Her classmates had voted her "class clown," "most bizarre girl" and "most…
Chappell RoanChappell Roan stood in front of a crowd in June 2024 and admitted she was having a hard time that day. Her career, she told them, was going really fast and was hard to keep up with. Then she said the line that frames her whole story: "This…
Sam AltmanSam Altman was fired as OpenAI's CEO in November 2023. Most of the staff threatened to quit, and he returned.
Bruce VilanchWhen Jack Palance did one-armed push-ups at the 1992 Oscars, Bruce Vilanch wrote new jokes on the spot.
Leslye HeadlandLeslye Headland once served as Harvey Weinstein's personal assistant. She later turned that job into a play, Assistance.
Billy PrestonBilly Preston got his name on a Beatles single. The 1969 "Get Back" was credited to "The Beatles with Billy Preston."
Chelsea ManningChelsea Manning is an American activist and whistleblower who, as a young Army intelligence analyst in Iraq, copied nearly 750,000 classified or sensitive military and diplomatic documents and passed them to WikiLeaks. To carry the files…
Phoebe BridgersPhoebe Bridgers ended her Saturday Night Live performance by smashing her guitar on a fake stage monitor. Moments earlier she had played "Kyoto" and "I Know the End" for a national television audience. Bridgers was born in Pasadena,…
Madison BeerIn July 2012, Justin Bieber sent a short message to his millions of followers: "wow. 13 years old! she can sing. great job. #futurestar". The girl he meant was Madison Beer, an American singer-songwriter. At the time, she was a teenager…
Drew BarrymoreDrew Barrymore was seven years old when she hosted Saturday Night Live on the 20th of November 1982, and nobody has hosted at a younger age since. The American actress went on to build a career that ran from child stardom to her own…
Hunter SchaferHunter Schafer found the casting call that changed her life on Instagram. It asked for transgender girls and required no acting experience. At that point she was a young artist and model who had planned to study clothing design in London.…
Billie Jean KingBillie Jean King beat 55-year-old Bobby Riggs in straight sets in 1973. He had claimed women's tennis was too weak.
Aileen WuornosAileen Carol Wuornos was born on the 29th of February 1956, a leap day that comes around only once every four years. She became an American serial killer, and she was executed in 2002 after a long wait on Florida's death row. Her story has…