Charmaine Clarice Relucio Pempengco (born May 10, 1992), best known as Charice (a combination of her first two names), is an international Filipina singer who rose to popularity through YouTube.  She is recording her U.S. debut album in the fall of 2009, and it will be released under Warner Bros. Records.  This album, along with all shows performed in the U.S. up to date will be produced by her mentor, 15-time Grammy Award winner David Foster.  Along with Foster, Charices' mother as well as daytime talk show mogul, Oprah Winfrey have played pivotal roles in launching her to stardom.  Pempengco is recognized for her powerful vocals, performing breathtaking renditions of power ballads from pop stars such as Celine Dion, Whitney Houston and Mariah Carey.   

 

For those of you who don't know how Charice got to where she is today, listen up because this is the stuff fairy tales are made of.  Charice grew up in a small town called Laguna in the Phillipines with her mother and brother.  An abusive father left Raquel Pempengco to fend for herself, working 16 hour days at a garment factory.  At age 4, Raquel discovered Charice's gift.  While in the kitchen, Raquel yelled to Charice to turn down the radio, only to enter the room and find that it was her daughter belting out the tunes. After some personal training in basic singing techniques, Charice began to enter into singing contests at the age of 7.  With the winnings, Charice was able to keep her family afloat, putting just enough food on the table to survive.  It wasn't until Charice was 15, having performed in 80+ contests around the country that people really started to listen.  A local friend (alias falsevoice) began to post her videos on the video networking site YouTube.  Her videos began to rack in the hits, totaling 13 million plus views in one years time.  A Korean show called Star King heard about this "Little Girl with the Big Voice" and invited her to come on their show.  It was this performance that catapulted Charice into a superstardom spiral.  After blowing the roof off of the audience at Star King, False Voice posted the video and US talk show host Ellen Degeneres wanted to bring Charice to the US.  So Charice Pempengco and her mother packed up 3 days of clothes and hopped on the plane for their first visit to the states.  If she was nervous, she sure didn't show it-Charice astounded the audience on the Ellen show and as Ellen said, "We have just witnessed the beginning of this young girls career".  Oprah Winfrey and David Foster were soon to follow suit, inviting Charice to stay in the states to be taken under their wing.  The rest as they say, is history....Dreams do come true, and 17 year-old Charice Pempengco is proof positive.  But let us not forget, if it wasn't for falsevoice, the truest of voices may still be hiding underground, half way across the world never to be discovered....