Celebrity Shortlist: Top 3 Female Pop Stars Who Started As A Backup Singer

It often seems like artists burst onto the scene overnight, but usually they were actually around long before. Here are our top three female pop stars who started as a backup singer at. Three, it's Gwen Stefani. Many fans know Gwen best as the lead singer of the band No Doubt, but what you might not realize is that when the group was starting out, before they'd even landed a record deal, they had a male singer and Stefani was the backup. On the 2nd place, we find Mary J Blige. Blige got her start when her mother's boyfriend played a recording of her for a label president who signed her up to support their bigger artists. That foot in the door, though, set her on her way to selling millions of albums of her own. And our top spot goes to Mariah Carey. It's hard to imagine this famous diva playing second fiddle to anybody, but it's true. Mariah sang back up for Brenda K Star until one day she accompanied Star to an industry party and was able to get her demo to a record exec there.