Hayley Williams

Hayley Nichole Williams[13][14] was born in Meridian, Mississippi, on December 27, 1988, the daughter of Joey and Cristi Williams.[4] She has two younger half-sisters.[15][16]

After her parents' divorce in 2002, Williams moved with her mother to Franklin, Tennessee.[17][18] She met future bandmates Josh and Zac Farro at her new school.[19][20] Shortly after settling in Franklin, she began taking vocal lessons with Brett Manning.[21][22][23] While still at school, she tried out for a local funk cover band, The Factory, where she met Jeremy Davis.[20][23][24] Williams' childhood neighbor was NBA player Rodney Hood.[25]

Williams was discovered in 2003 by managers Dave Steunebrink and Richard Williams, who signed the 14-year-old to a two-year production deal.[26][27] At the time she was writing pop songs with songwriters in Nashville.[27] Williams was introduced to Atlantic Records A&R Tom Storms through Richard Williams' attorneys Jim Zumwalt and Kent Marcus, and then signed to the label by Jason Flom.[23] The label's original plan for their new artist was to make her a solo pop artist, but Williams objected to this, saying that she wanted to be part of a band and play pop punk music.[5][23][28]

Williams performing on Warped Tour 2007

Atlantic decided to go along with her wishes, and she then formed Paramore with Josh Farro, Zac Farro, and Jeremy Davis.[27] The music of Paramore was originally supposed to come out on Atlantic Records, but the label's marketing department decided it would be better for the image of the band to not have them attached to a huge label. They instead released their music through a "cooler" niche label, Fueled by Ramen.[27] According to Williams, the name "Paramore" came from the maiden name of the mother of one of their first bass players.[29] Once the group learned the meaning of the homophone "paramour" ("secret lover"), they decided to adopt the name, using the Paramore spelling.[23][30] The band's debut album, All We Know Is Falling, was released in 2005 when Hayley was only 16 years old. Paramore has since released four more studio albums, Riot! (2007), Brand New Eyes (2009), the self-titled Paramore (2013) and After Laughter (2017). In June 2009, the band welcomed Taylor York (rhythm guitar) as an official member, although he had already been playing as a touring member with the band since 2007. In December 2010, Josh and Zac Farro left the band. The news was posted by Williams on Paramore's website, with Josh later posting a blog post confirming their departure, calling the group "a manufactured product of a major label, riding on the coattails of 'Hayley's dream'".[31][32]

Williams performing in 2010

In 2006, Paramore toured outside of the US for the first time, which included a headline tour of the UK and supporting post-hardcore rock band The Blackout on the Give It A Name Festival in Europe.[33] The following year, she and the rest of Paramore made an appearance in the music video for "Kiss Me" by New Found Glory.[34] In the 2007 Kerrang! Readers' Poll, she finished second to Evanescence's Amy Lee in the "Sexiest Female" category,[35] going on to win the first place spot for "Sexiest Female" a year later in the 2008 poll,[36] and again in the 2009, 2010, 2011 and 2012 poll. She also appears as a playable character in the video game Guitar Hero World Tour after completing "Misery Business" in the vocalist campaign.[37][38][39]

Williams performing as part of Paramore on Monumentour in 2014

Williams wrote and recorded the song "Teenagers", which was featured in the soundtrack for the feature film Jennifer's Body. After the release of "Teenagers", Williams stated that she had no plans to establish herself as a solo artist.[40] In 2010, she appeared on the tracks "Airplanes" and "Airplanes, Part II" from alternative rapper B.o.B's debut album, B.o.B Presents: The Adventures of Bobby Ray.[41][42][43] When it was released as a single, "Airplanes" peaked within the top ten in nineteen countries, including the number one position in the United Kingdom and New Zealand.[44][45]

EDM producer Zedd and Williams collaborated on the track "Stay the Night", from his debut studio album, Clarity,[46][47] which was released in 2013. Williams was honored with the "Trailblazer Award" in the 2014 Billboard's Women in Music Awards for making a unique mark in music and paving the way for other artists.[48] In 2015, Williams starred as the 'Crimson Curse' in Taylor Swift's music video for her single, "Bad Blood", alongside sixteen other celebrities.[49] Along with band member and co-writer Taylor York, Williams was nominated for and won the Grammy Award for Best Rock Song at the 2015 ceremony for the song "Ain't It Fun".[50][51][52] In July 2015, Williams won the APMA for Best Vocalist.[46][53] In 2019, she collaborated with American Football on the song "Uncomfortably Numb", which appeared on the band's third self-titled studio album.[54]

In a 2019 interview with l'Odet, Williams was asked 'if she would stay in Paramore for a long time,' and answered: "In moving forward, if the three of us are happy, then we will just do whatever we want to do. If that means collaborating with each other, bringing other friends in to collaborate — there are seven band members when we tour. We’re all friends and we all make music in different parts, together. So I feel like, yes, I want to be in Paramore...I’ve been in a band with them since I was 12; I don’t think the band is going anywhere. As long as we’re friends, the band just is. It’s just in us." [55]

In December 2019, on her 31st birthday, Williams announced she would be releasing solo music in 2020, with a "taste" of it to come in January. Flyers consisting of a picture of Williams under the title Petals for Armor began appearing in several US cities and abroad. Her debut solo single "Simmer" was released on January 22, 2020, with its accompanying music video.[56][57][58] That same day Williams announced that her debut studio album, Petals for Armor, would be released on May 8, 2020. It was later revealed that she would release an EP, Petals for Armor I, on February 6, 2020, in an interview with Zane Lowe on Apple Music. On March 19, she announced that she was postponing the release of the second half of the EP, and instead released the song "Roses/Lotus/Violet/Iris" featuring boygenius.[59]

In January 2021, Williams started teasing a project titled Flowers for Vases / Descansos.[60] She unofficially released the single "My Limb" by giving a CD with the track on it to a dedicated fan.[61] Williams released the album on February 5, 2021.[62]

Williams performing at Rock im Park in Nuremberg, Germany, in 2013

In March 2013, Williams announced she was partnering with MAC Cosmetics for the release of a new makeup collection on April 9, 2013.[63][64] The four-piece collection included a bright orange lipstick, an orange nail polish, a shimmery coral eye shadow and a beauty powder.[65] Hayley appeared on the April 2013 cover of Nylon magazine to promote Paramore's self-titled album.[66][67]

In October of that year, Williams partnered with the Hard Rock Café's PINKTOBER charity campaign to raise awareness and funding for breast cancer and its research.[68][69]

In 2015, she launched the online beauty and music series Kiss-Off on Popular TV.[70][71]

In 2016, after over four years of planning, Williams launched her own hair dye company, Good Dye Young, alongside her hair and makeup artist, Brian O'Connor.[72][73][74] The colors offered by the company included an orange, Riot!; a pink, Ex-Girl; a blue, Blue Ruin; a yellow, Steal My Sunshine; a red, Rock Lobster; a purple, PPL Eater; a green, Kowabunga; a teal, Narwhal; and a black, None More Black.[75][76] The dyes are vegan and cruelty-free.[77]

Williams performing in 2018

In 2017, Good Dye Young launched a temporary hair dye line, that disappears after one wash, called Poser Paste,[72][78][79] and in May 2020, they released Lighter Daze, a range of five semi-permanent pastel colors.[80]

In November 2020, Williams released a candle in collaboration with home fragrance brand Apothekeco.[81]

In March 2021, Williams announced her collaboration with Tea Huntress, a tea manufacturer in Nashville. Two new blends are available as part of the collaboration, called Bloom and Alibi. A portion of each sale will be donated to Thistle Farms, an organization that helps women survivors of trafficking, abuse, and addiction.[82]

Throughout much of her life Williams identified as a Christian and regularly discussed her faith in relation to her music, however, in later years she has expressed that her beliefs are not the same as they once were. In the past she has criticized the judgmental nature of some in the Christian community.[83] The Farro brothers cited differing attitudes on faith as contributing to their exit from Paramore.[84] In late 2007,[85] Williams began dating Chad Gilbert, lead guitarist of New Found Glory. They became engaged on Christmas Day 2014.[86][87] They were married on February 20, 2016.[88] On July 1, 2017, the couple formally announced that they had separated due to Gilbert's repeated infidelity and their pending divorce was eventually finalized by the end of 2017, during Paramore's touring cycle for After Laughter.[89][90] In September 2022, Williams confirmed she and Paramore bandmate Taylor York are dating.[91]

Williams had publicized her decisions against such practices as smoking, drinking, or use of recreational drugs when she was younger; she has revealed that she now drinks alcohol.[92][93]

Williams has been vocal about her experiences with depression, which caused her to briefly leave Paramore in mid-2015.[94] In a 2019 interview, she openly discussed depression, mental health, and her divorce.[95] In a February 2020 interview, she revealed she had suicidal thoughts, but that she ultimately did not act on them.[96] In a February 2021 interview, she discussed how she had been impacted by generational trauma and revealed that she has been in therapy since the conclusion of Paramore's After Laughter tour in 2018.[97]

In 2015, Williams responded to feminist criticism of "Misery Business" – a single from Paramore's album Riot! – citing her youth and inexperience as a contributing factor to the song's allegedly misogynistic lyrics. In a blog post addressing the criticism, Williams described herself as "a proud feminist. Just maybe not a perfect one".[98] In June 2020, Williams temporarily handed control of her Instagram account to Nashville-based activist group Teens4Equality to highlight their work in relation to the Black Lives Matter movement.[99]

In October 2021, Williams announced that she would be discontinuing her use of personal social media accounts, citing the need for boundaries between her public and private life and her desire to "spend more time looking up and out, rather than down". She also directed her fans to follow Paramore's social media accounts instead. This choice does not affect Paramore's use of social media.[100]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Hayley Williams.

• Hayley William's Archived January 1, 2011, at the Wayback Machine Profile on Paramore.net
• Quotations related to Hayley Williams at Wikiquote