Normani Kordei Hamilton is one of the four ladies of the famous girl group, Fifth Harmony. She is also the 2nd runner up in the 24th season of American TV series, Dancing with the Stars.
She takes the lead vocals in their song Reflection that happens to have the same name as their first album. She has joined the group in touring worldwide for their Reflection and 727 Tours. While doing the Asian leg of their 727 tours, Normani flew to and from America to perform for Dancing with the Stars. Her solo endeavors do not just stop from her dancing career but she also has covered songs in Soundcloud and Youtube.
Personal Life
Normani was born on May 31, 1996, in Atlanta, Georgia. Though, she spent her growing years in New Orleans until 2005. Her family had to move to Houston, Texas after the Hurricane Katrina hit and her home suffered the damages of the natural disaster.
Normani has seen death before her eyes as a young child. She remembers there were bodies floating around while others were being evacuated and put on safety. In an episode of Dancing with the Stars, she along with her parents, narrated the story. She mentioned in the introduction video that “It was like my childhood, everything that I knew, all my memories, gone.”
Standing in front of the crowd has been a norm for Normani even when she was young. As young as three years old, she already performed her award-winning dance moves in various competitions. Her grandmother used to make her costumes. She was also a gymnast.
When she reached thirteen years old, she recorded her first single. She also posted her cover of Best Thing I Never Had by Beyonce Knowles which has now over 100,000 views. She also played a minor role in Treme, an HBO series. She also once competed for the title of Miss Texas where she was able to reach the finals. But, she didn’t pursue her fate for beauty pageants and instead, she decided to audition for The X-Factor. Her audition song was Chain of Fools by Aretha Franklin.
While she was already a member of Fifth Harmony, Normani suffered ruthless bullying in social media that led her to quit Twitter. She said that “People were calling me the N word.” The unwanted bullying was described by her to be “really ugly.” Her experience with cyberbullying has pushed her to the edge that almost led her to quit Fifth Harmony.
Family of Normani
She was born to Derrick Hamilton and Andrea Steward Hamilton. She comes from a family of an African-American, Indian, and French bloodlines. Her mom was diagnosed with breast cancer when she was just five years old but recovered after getting the proper treatment. But, not even a year after her mom recovered from cancer, their family underwent the struggles brought by the hurricane Katrina. Nevertheless, they have survived together. Normani has two more siblings, Arielle and Ashlee Hamilton. Living with them is their grandmother Barbara Bissant.
Relationships of Normani
As of 2017, Normani has only been known by their Harmonizers to have dated two people. One was Arin Ray, her co-contestant in The X-Factor. It has been said that their whirlwind romance had caused some tensions in the production. They faced off during boot camp, singing to What Makes You Beautiful by One Direction.
In 2014, Mani dated Thomas “Masi” Hansen. Coincidentally, he is one of the cousins of her bandmate, Dinah Jane. Masi once called Normani his “Little Beyonce” and asked her fans to take care of her as he sets off on his religious mission in Guam as an active Mormon. They later broke up which was confirmed in an interview in October 2015.
Music Career and Fifth Harmony
When she auditioned for The X-Factor in 2012, Normani was able to get all four “yes” answers from the judges: Simon Cowell, L.A. Reid, Demi Lovato, and Britney Spears. During the first boot camp, she sang If I Ain’t Got You by Alicia Keys which also happened to be the audition piece of her bandmate, Lauren Jauregui.
After her face off with Arin Ray, she unfortunately, got eliminated from the teen singles category and paved the way for her to be put in the group category. She was called back on stage and put together with Dinah Jane, Ally Brooke, Lauren Jauregui, and Camila Cabello. Their group was initially called LYLAS before it was changed to Fifth Harmony.
Notable performances by her and the group were Anything Could Happen by Ellie Goulding, Give Your Heart A Break by Demi Lovato, and Impossible by Shontelle. The group’s last performance was Let It Be by The Beatles and ended the competition in third place. Nonetheless, she and the group were signed by both Syco Music and Epic Records just a few months after The X-Factor ended. She, along with the others, starred in many Takeover videos of Awesomeness TV. It recorded the daily life of Fifth Harmony on the road. In the videos, Normani is called by the girls as “Mani” or “ManiBear.”
They released a few songs before their first album: Better Together, One Wish, and Me and My Girls. They had mall tours within the USA and performed at the 2013 American Music Awards before they performed as an opening act to Demi Lovato’s Neon Light Concert. Their album Reflection was a success with hit singles that include Worth It and Bo$$. It was released on February 03, 2015.
The following year, the group released another full-length album, 727 that had Work From Home as its lead single. The album was released on May 27, 2016.
On December 18, 2016, she along with the three other girls, announced the departure of their former member, Camila Cabello. They said that despite attempts of communicating with her and her team, the former ultimately refused. Normani along with the rest of Fifth Harmony and their team were informed by Camila’s manager in mid-November 2016 about her departure.
In their letter, they had thanked their Harmonizers for their support and stated that they are going to continue as a four-piece group. On June 02, 2017, they released Down, their first single without Camila, which also will be the lead single from their third album.
Solo Projects
Unlike the other girls, Normani has not released any collaborative work with other artists just yet. Though, she has published different covers of famous songs like Fake Love / Sneakin’ by Drake, Don’t Touch My Hair / Cranes in the Sky by Solange Knowles, and Say It by Tory Lanez.
Her biggest solo endeavor was joining Dancing with the Stars Season 24. She was partnered with Valentin Chmerkovskiy. Fifth Harmony showed their support by singing their hit cover Impossible during Normani’s rumba performance in the fourth week of the show. She and Val got the immunity and perfect score for their Argentine tango in week seven. They got another perfect score for their contemporary dance the week after, advancing them to the semi-finals. They earned the perfect scores for week nine and ten for their jazz, freestyle, and Argentine tango (final performance). At the end of the competition, it was announced that Normani and Val won third place.
She has also joined her group in doing philanthropic works. They visited the Children’s Hospital in Philadelphia and launched a campaign called #ImABoss that focused on developing self-esteem in collaboration with Do Something.
She was also named as the Diversity Ambassador of Cybersmile Foundation. Apart from charity work, she also posed for Cliche Magazine’s February/March 2016 issue among other magazine covers.
Net Worth and Achievements
She has won 47 awards with Fifth Harmony and had 81 nominations in total. Their cover Ex’s & Oh’s won the 2017 iHeart Radio Music Awards. Their single Work From Home was also awarded as the 2016 Most Watched Music Video in Youtube after it garnered over 1.6 billion views.
With her success in Fifth Harmony and personal achievements, she has earned a total net worth of $3 million dollars.