Avril Lavigne
Before she became the anti-Hilary Duff, Avril Lavigne was your average Canadian kid, getting in fights in the hockey rink, making extra cash as a lawn landscaper and teaching herself how to play guitar. Her first manager discovered her singing at 14 in a bookstore. At 15, she won the chance to sing a duet with Shania Twain at one of her stadium shows in a radio contest. By 16, she was signed to a $1.25 million contract by L.A. Reid, had dropped out of high school and moved to New York to record. Although she was first imagined as a country star, pop punk rock would become her signature sound and it was masterfully showcased on her 2002 debut Let Go, which included singles "Complicated" and "Sk8er Boi," sold more than 13 million copies and earned her five Grammy nods. She released her sophomore effort, Under My Skin, in 2004, the same year that she took her relationship with Sum 41 singer Deryck Whibley. They were engaged a year later in Venice, married in July 2006 in Montecito, Calif., and filed for divorced in 2009. He still worked with her on fourth album Pink Crust. Lavigne has occasionally acted as well. She voiced an opossum in "Over The Hedge" and made her feature debut in 2006's "Fast Food Nation." Following two years as "Hills" star Brody Jenner's "Girlfriend," she was swept off her feet and down the aisle by Nickelback frontman Chad Kroeger, who proposed after a six-month courtship. They married in July 2013.
