Mika

Easily noticeable for his soaring falsetto and flamboyant appearance, Mika was born one of the five children of an American banker and a Lebanese woman on August 18, 1983 in Beirut, Lebanon under the name Michael Holbrook Penniman. As a child, he spent his early years in Paris, France before eventually settled in London, England where he attended Lycee Francais Charles de Gaulle in South Kensington then the exclusive Westminster School. This period sadly was not a pleasant one to go through as the kid incessantly received verbal bullying which later led him to experience what he referred as "little breakdown" at the age of eleven. "I was called the typical fag and all those other homophobic, horrible little comments that kids throw at each other," he recalled.

Forced to pull out of school with no friends caring for him, Mica - so he is usually called during the time - consequently looked for another way to find solace and later discovered that music was the most reliable medium he could lean on. With the help from a Russian singing teacher whom his mother hired while she educated him at home, he was able to hone his incredible, five-octave singing range that delightfully allowed him to perform in the chorus line of a Strauss opera at the Royal Opera House. What's more, he even could make his way to enter the Royal College of Music where he drew enough knowledge to next work as a songwriter for jingles during his mid-teens.