H.E.R.

Gabriella Sarmiento Wilson (born June 27, 1997), known professionally as H.E.R. (pronounced as "her"; standing for "Having Everything Revealed") is an American R&B singer, songwriter, and actress. She has received an Academy Award, a Children's and Family Emmy Award, and five Grammy Awards, as well as nominations for a Golden Globe Award, three American Music Awards, and four Billboard Music Awards.

After initially recording under her birth name, Wilson adopted the stage name H.E.R. in 2016 and signed with RCA Records. She released her debut extended play (EP), H.E.R. Volume 1, in September of that year. Her first compilation album, H.E.R. (2017), peaked at number 23 on the Billboard 200 and earned five Grammy Award nominations, winning Best R&B Album and Best R&B Performance for "Best Part", a collaboration with Daniel Caesar. Her second compilation album, I Used to Know Her (2019), also received five Grammy Award nominations, including Album of the Year and Song of the Year for "Hard Place".

In 2021, H.E.R. won the Academy Award for Best Original Song for "Fight for You", from Judas and the Black Messiah, and the Grammy Award for Song of the Year for "I Can't Breathe". Her debut studio album, Back of My Mind (2021), peaked at number six on the Billboard 200. In 2022, she won the Children's and Family Emmy Award for her contributions to the animated children's series, We the People.

Through her career H.E.R acted in film and television special, including on 2023 second film adaptation of The Color Purple, being nominated with the cast at the Critics' Choice Movie Award and Screen Actors Guild Award. She also voiced animated series and films, including DreamWorks' Forgotten Island.

Early life and family

Gabriella Sarmiento Wilson was born on June 27, 1997, in Vallejo, California, to an African-American father and a Filipina mother from Cabanatuan City, Nueva Ecija, and raised in California's San Francisco Bay Area. According to an interview with Guitar Center, Wilson's father was a musician in a cover band, and hosted their practice sessions in the family's living room. She appeared in the 2023 edition of the Crossroads Guitar Festival performing with her father.

Additionally, members of her mother's extended family were guitarists, drummers and bassists, as well as vocalists, often playing for karaoke events. Wilson states that these were some of her earliest influences, musically.

Career

2007–2011: Career beginnings

At age ten, performing as Gabi Wilson, she played an Alicia Keys song on the piano for the Today Show and at the famed Apollo Theater (Harlem, New York City) on September 23, 2007, covering Aretha Franklin's "Freeway of Love". She made her acting debut in the Nickelodeon television film School Gyrls, written and directed by Nick Cannon, which premiered in February 2010. She also performed on Maury (2007), and Good Morning America and The View (both in 2008). At this time, she was managed by Will Smith's Overbrook Entertainment. She performed at age 12 at the 2010 BET Awards, covering Keys' 2001 hit "Fallin'", sang a tribute to Keys at the ASCAP Awards, and competed on Radio Disney's The Next BIG Thing at age 12, with her song "My Music", featured on Radio Disney.

2011–2016: Signing with RCA

Wilson signed a record deal with Sony's RCA Records via J Records in a deal arranged by her manager Jeff Robinson's MBK Entertainment in 2011 when she was 14. In 2014, her debut single "Something to Prove" was released under her real name.