Miranda Sings has been telling Haters to back off since she first uploaded a hilariously bad cover of Aretha Franklin’s “Respect” in late 2007. Since then, she has accumulated more than 7 million YouTube subscribers and one billion views of her videos – more than 5.1 million Instagram followers, 3.67 million Twitter followers and 2 million Facebook fans – and just launched an eight-episode series called Haters Back Off! on Netflix. She’s the brainchild alter-ego of singer Colleen Ballinger, who has millions of fans and followers for her real-life pages, too. She developed her funny new Netflix series alongside her brother, Chris, and it co-stars Angela Kinsey and Steve Little as Miranda’s mother and uncle, who are blindly devoted to helping the homeschooled Miranda achieve her dreams of stardom. How did Colleen Ballinger pull this all off? She tells me her true story of talent, hard work and determination.

So let’s get to it!