Background and career
Lilly Singh (born September 26, 1988) is a Canadian YouTuber, actress, television host, and comedian. She began making YouTube videos in 2010, initially under the pseudonym Superwoman (stylized IISuperwomanII), which she used as her username until 2019.
Singh released her documentary A Trip to Unicorn Island (2016) and her first book How to Be a Bawse: A Guide to Conquering Life (2017), which was a New York Times Best Seller. From September 2019 to June 2021, Singh acted as executive producer and host of the NBC late-night talk show A Little Late with Lilly Singh. She is the first person of Indian descent to host an American late-night talk show. Singh has since gone on to voice Tiffany Fluffit in DreamWorks Animation's The Bad Guys film franchise (2022–present).
Singh was born and raised in the Scarborough district of Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Her parents, Malvindar Kaur and Sukvindar Singh, are Indian Punjabi immigrants from Hoshiarpur, Punjab, India and raised her as a Sikh. Singh's older sister, Tina (born 1982), is also a YouTuber; she makes videos about her family life with her husband and their three sons, under the name 'The Tina Singh' (formerly 'MOM BOSS OF 3'). Singh had said she was a tomboy as a child. She attended Mary Shadd Public School during her elementary years, and in 2006 she graduated from Lester B. Pearson Collegiate Institute in Malvern, Toronto. She was also a member of Girl Guides of Canada and participated in their youth programs. In 2010, she graduated from York University in Toronto with a Bachelor of Arts in psychology.
In October 2010, Singh started a YouTube channel under the pseudonym "IISuperwomanII". Starting out, she had intended to go to graduate school as her parents had requested, but she instead chose to make YouTube videos and decided that she would return to graduate school if her YouTube career did not progress. In December 2011, Singh created a second channel called "SuperwomanVlogs", now titled "Lilly Singh Vlogs", where she chronicles her daily activities and includes behind the scenes footage from her videos. She used it as a second channel to upload videos until August 2014, when she began uploading vlogs. Singh appeared as a background dancer in the movies Speedy Singhs and Thank You in 2011. When Singh acquired 100,000 subscribers in 2012 she applied to YouTube for monetization on her videos. When YouTube accepted, Singh "became more career-minded" and bought her first camera for $699.
In August 2013, Singh was featured alongside Jassi Sidhu in his Punjabi song Hipshaker. She rapped in the song Mauj Ki Malharein, which played in the Bollywood drama Gulaab Gang in August 2014. In July of the same year, Singh released a song titled #LEH in a collaboration with her friend, author and rapper Kanwer Singh, who is known by the pseudonym "Humble the Poet". In 2014, Singh appeared in a small role in the Canadian production Dr. Cabbie. In the same year, she was nominated for a Shorty Award and a Streamy Award.
How Lilly Singh makes money
In 2016, she was included in Forbes list of world's highest paid YouTubers ranking third and earning a reported $7.5 million. In 2018, she was once again ranked on the Forbes list of the world's highest-paid YouTube stars, in tenth place, earning a reported $10.5 million.
