Kimberly Henderson

Kimberly Henderson was born on January 26, 1988, in Sumter, South Carolina, United States. She has a sister named Jaime.

Henderson had a quiet childhood in a middle-class household. However, things started to change drastically when, at 16, she got pregnant with her first child. Marrying the father of the child, she subsequently gave birth to a daughter, whom she named Kayleigh. She and Kayleigh’s father later divorced. In the following years, her middle daughter Brianna, son Aiden, and youngest daughter Vaida were born. The children don’t have the same father.

On March 15, 2013, she visited an abortion clinic while she was pregnant with Vaida. After staying there for seven hours, she left without undergoing the procedure. She cites the day as one of the most important days of her life.

Henderson has been singing since she was 15 years old. She appeared on ‘American Idol’ three different times but never made it past the audition phase. Despite all the hardships that life had brought her, she kept on singing and never gave up on her dreams. She also auditioned unsuccessfully for ‘The Voice’.

In December 2014, she was having trouble getting her youngest daughter Vaida fall asleep. Instead of singing a traditional lullaby, she decided to sing Sam Smith’s arrangement of Whitney Houston’s ‘How Will I Know’ and recorded herself doing so. Her sister, Jaime, suggested that she should upload it on Facebook. Reluctantly, she agreed. Within the span of a week, the video garnered over 20 million views and she became a social media sensation. She then appeared on national television and as many as four record labels were interested in signing her.

She found a manager, Susan Markheim, with Irving Azoff’s agency, and later made a deal with Los Angeles-based record label Break Entertainment. She was flown to Los Angeles where she recorded her debut single ‘Tiny Hearts’, which she dedicated to all single parents. Released in 2015, the song brought her wide recognition.