MIDNIGHT

Victoria Rios (born August 15, 1986), known by her stage name MIDNIGHT, is a British-born Latin singer, songwriter, actress, and short-film director who rose to fame in late 2010.

Often known for her outspoken, feminist-driven, and even flirtatious personality, the singer rose to prominence with the help of her debut single, "Survive", which featured Brazilian R&B singer Paulo Araujo. The single debuted and peaked at #1 for two weeks on the official UK Singles Chart, becoming the first act to do so with a debut single since Ryan Simmonds in 2001.

In November 2010, MIDNIGHT released her debut album, Demons. The album was successful selling 113,733 copies in its first week and debuting at #1 on the UK Albums Chart, enough to be instantly certified Silver in its first week of availability by the BPI and Gold in its third week, eventually going Platinum in its fourth week of release. To date, Demons has been certified Diamond.

She released her sophomore album UNCENSORED in August 2011 to critical praise and huge chart success, debuting at number one in the UK with sales of 193,521, becoming the fastest selling album of the year. Her lead single "Money Equals Love" also topped the singles chart the same week, selling 183,727 copies, the highest first week sales for a single since 2006. To date, the song has been certified 3x Platinum and currently remains as the best selling song of all time.

MIDNIGHT is the first ever female artist to have her first nine singles debut at number one. She has two Diamond certified number one albums thus far. She was also named the Best Selling Singles Artist and Best Selling Artist of 2011 with sales of 3,844,600 in the UK.

Early life
MIDNIGHT was born as Victoria Rios on August 15, 1986 in London, United Kingdom and spent much time traveling from her home to the United States, Spain and also Jamaica as a young girl for family related reasons.

In a past interview, MIDNIGHT revealed that her father abused her mother and was also a drug user, she then went on to confirm that they are no longer in contact.

MIDNIGHT at first went to acting school to pursue her dream of becoming an actress and managed to appear on several popular televisions shows such as Eastenders in the early 2000's and also a children's television show which was later axed. Many years later, MIDNIGHT dropped out of acting school and believed that a music career was what she had more interest in and hired a vocal coach to help enhance her vocal ability, she later set up a MySpace page and managed to receive some popularity and secure a fairly small but supportive fanbase.

In late 2011, it was revealed that MIDNIGHT was the sister of Kris from pop boy band Difused.

Rise to fame and Demons (2010)
MIDNIGHT's debut and lead single "Survive" which features Paulo Araujo was announced on August 6, 2010 and received much buzz from other artists in the industry who praised the look of her and the promising collaboration for the single. The single received positive reviews from critics and was described as a "song to dominates the clubs". The single was released September 27, 2010 on Fusion Records, debuting at #1, the first artist to chart at the top with their debut single since Thorn City in May 2010. Her success continued with the single as it stayed on to top the charts for two weeks, becoming certified Silver in its second week and Platinum in its third.

Her debut single in the U.S "No Forgiveness" was released November 2, 2010 and was written by Elice Claire. After buzz for the songstress built up in the States and the controversial video began to get media talking, the song climbed the charts rapidly, peaking in the top 10 at #7 on the Billboard Hot 100. However, due to scheduling conflicts and her teams wish to build up her fan base gradually over a longer period of time, the U.S release of Demons was cancelled.

In the UK, her second single "Little Miss Murder" was released on November 22, 2010, a week after the release of the album and became her second consecutive #1 hit and has been certified Platinum.

Her third single "Dominatrix" was released January 17, 2011 and gave the singer yet another #1 from the album, debuting with 110,639 copies sold, the highest debut sales frame since Elice Claire's "Cloud Nine/Never Let Go" which was released in August 2010.

Her fourth and final UK single from the album was announced on February 17, 2011 to be the rock-influenced "License to Kill". The single debuted at #1 on the UK Singles Chart, becoming her fourth consecutive Platinum single and number one hit; selling 96,028 copies in its first week. To date, the album has sold over 1,000,000 copies and has been certified Diamond.

UNCENSORED, fragrance and U.S fame (2011)
UNCENSORED was first announced in a press release which was posted on her official website on July 10, 2011, which also confirmed lead single "Money Equals Love" and the release date of August 15 for both single and album, the single was MIDNIGHT's first to receive a simultaneous global release and topped charts around the world, including the UK and the U.S. The single has become the best selling song of all time. The album also opened at number one in the UK with sales of 193,521 and topped charts around Europe, debuting in the top ten in the U.S too. On the same date as the album, MIDNIGHT released her debut fragrance Rebellion around Europe, explaining herself that the scent was designed to be alluring and seductive. Rebellion was later released in the U.S in December 2011. In an interview, MIDNIGHT confirmed a world tour will support the new album, the UNCENSORED Tour was later announced on July 25 on her official site in support of the album and began in October, although some reviews negatively pointed out how the show was a bad influence on younger members in the audience, the tour overall received positive reviews.

The second single to be released from UNCENSORED was "Lady Danger", a song that MIDNIGHT has spoken favourably about in the past, claiming that it was originally planned to be the lead single from the album. The single was released December 5, 2011 and became her sixth consecutive number one single, its romantic horror short film music video which goes under the title of Show Me Your Heart was released two days before its release and received extremely positive reviews, later being released on DVD due to high demand.

Pregnancy and hiatus (2012)
On January 28th, 2011, MIDNIGHT gave an exclusive to popular media source Diva, revealing that she was pregnant, and that Rory Jacobs was the father. Both MIDNIGHT and Rory dated briefly in late 2011 when the male newcomer was on URAPS Idol. The news sparked an online frenzy, '#BABYNIGHT' became the most tweeted term on social network site Twitter since its 2006 launch, and the singer received many well wishes from other stars. Soon after the pregnancy revelation, rumours came out that both MIDNIGHT and Rory were back together, the news was later confirmed to be true when the pair appeared at an event together.

In an interview with BBC Radio 1 on Valentine's Day, MIDNIGHT confirmed that after third single "Withering Love" from her album UNCENSORED, she wishes to take a break to have time to herself and to enjoy being a mother, adding that she will think about her next step in music sometime in 2013. The single was later scrapped for unknown reasons, and instead, a download only release of the song was made available on March 5, 2012 as a new mix which featured Aurora Reed.

At 6:07am on July 24, 2012, MIDNIGHT gave birth to a healthy baby boy, named Beau Samuel Jacobs, weighing at seven pounds and nine ounces.

Return to music (2013)
A press release was issued on MIDNIGHT's official website on December 27, 2012 which confirmed her third studio album, Riot Grrrl, as well as lead single "Ashes to Ashes". Both single and album were confirmed for release on February 11, 2013 with Fusion Records.

The lead single premiered on popular music blog SOUND, shocking fans and critics with its notably different direction to her past releases. Despite the drastic change, the single gained positive reviews, as many complimented it for its "heartbreaking lyrics". Ahead of the album's release date, MIDNIGHT started promotion by talking to Inside the Music about what to expect from the record, stating that it was "a lot darker", and that she wanted to make music that could be considered "timeless and classic". Two days later, the album cover and track listing was revealed on MIDNIGHT's official website, the cover a recreation of the surrealistic portrait In Voluptas Mors, a collaboration between Philippe Halsman and Salvador Dalí. The image shows multiple images of MIDNIGHT naked, wearing just pasties, placed in the position of a skull. The cover was praised among fans, many calling the cover the "best in a while" and "iconic".

MIDNIGHT debuted at #1 on the UK Official Charts with both her lead single and album, scoring her eighth consecutive number one single and third consecutive number one album. Shortly after the success of the releases, she announced her Wild Heart Tour which will see the singer tour stadiums around Europe, as well as arenas in North America and Australasia. Tickets for the UK shows went on sale first and sold out in a matter of a few days, the rest of the shows following a similar pattern.

Continuing promotion for the record, MIDNIGHT released collaboration single "Bad Girl" with Sienna Martinez on April 29, 2013.

Controversy

 * During the Fusion: Live tour, MIDNIGHT's set received complaints from parents who took their children to the show. MIDNIGHT's set reportedly promoted violence and consisted of risque outfits, MIDNIGHT responded to the complaints and claimed that angered parents should have done their research on the acts they were seeing live before allowing their children to go.


 * MIDNIGHT sparked anger amongst several artists when she claimed that religion in music was "overplayed" and had been done "time and time before", claiming that most general people couldn't relate to it as much as songs about real life troubles. This statement received a large amount of backlash from other artists in the industry, Alesha claimed MIDNIGHT was a "hypocrite" as she uses a cross in her logo, whilst MIDNIGHT responded that the cross was not to preach about Christianity but because of her attraction to the design. China, L'mondrea Brown, Sienna Martinez and Cassie Fox all backed Alesha in the disagreement between the pair.


 * Roughly three weeks after the release of her single "Little Miss Murder", Kirby made accusations against her, saying that the singer had drugged him, tried to murder him and even tried to rape him. According to Kirby, this particular incident happened just around the time MIDNIGHT was to shoot the video for her now #1 single, "Little Miss Murder", in which Kirby plays a dead man who was killed by MIDNIGHT's character. Kirby later claimed that MIDNIGHT flew him to to the UK briefly for the video shoot, later drugged him again, flew him back to Russia, and later dumped him on the sidewalk in St. Petersburg (where he lives) while he was still unconscious and after the video shoot was done. Kirby hadn't remembered anything about the encounter until he shockingly saw himself in MIDNIGHT's hit video for "Little Miss Murder". MIDNIGHT simply commented on the matter and labelled Kirby as "deluded".


 * It was heavily speculated in the media that MIDNIGHT had a one night stand with singer Brett Clarkson, which led on to MIDNIGHT writing the track "Better Sex on My Own" for her album Demons. Many months after the incident, sex tape rumours began to appear around the promotion for Brett's single "Lollipop". After many threats from Brett about the tape, he leaked it online the day his single reached number one.


 * MIDNIGHT found herself in more controversy with Kirby in April 2011 when she was arrested on suspicion of attempted murder on him and his boyfriend Carlisle. However, she was released the next day due to lack of evidence and it has since been confirmed that it was not MIDNIGHT who attacked the two.

Presenting
Since her debut, MIDNIGHT has been recognised for her distinctive personality which has led to many presenting offers come her way. She has gone onto present the following shows:


 * 2010 URAPS Christmas Chart Show
 * Happy New Year 2010
 * The 10th Anniversary Chart Show
 * Happy New Year 2011
 * Happy New Year 2012

Discography
Main Article: MIDNIGHT Discography

Albums
2010: Demons 2011: UNCENSORED 2013: Riot Grrrl

Singles
2010: "Survive" (feat. Paulo Araujo) 2010: "No Forgiveness" (U.S Only) 2010: "Little Miss Murder" 2011: "Dominatrix" 2011: "License to Kill" 2011: "Money Equals Love" 2011: "Lady Danger" 2012: "The Act Is Over" (with Kleo) 2013: "Ashes to Ashes" 2013: "Bad Girl" (feat. Sienna Martinez)

Awards and nominations

 * 2010 Video Music Awards — Best Video by a Female "Little Miss Murder" — Won
 * 2010 Video Music Awards — Best Video by a Newcomer "Survive" — Nominated
 * 2010 Video Music Awards — Best Video by a Newcomer "Little Miss Murder" — Won
 * 2010 Video Music Awards — Best Pop or Dance Video "Little Miss Murder" — Nominated
 * 2010 Video Music Awards — Best Hip-Hop/R'n'B Video "No Forgiveness" — Nominated
 * 2010 Video Music Awards — Best Collaborative Video "Survive" — Nominated
 * 2010 Video Music Awards — Best Art Direction "Little Miss Murder" — Nominated
 * 2010 Video Music Awards — Breakthrough Video "Little Miss Murder" — Won
 * Urapopstar Awards 19 — Best Album Demons — Won
 * Urapopstar Awards 19 — Best Overall Artist — Won
 * Urapopstar Awards 19 — Best Female Artist — Nominated
 * Urapopstar Awards 19 — Best Newcomer — Won
 * Urapopstar Awards 19 — Best Pop/Dance — Nominated
 * Urapopstar Awards 19 — Best Video "Little Miss Murder" — Nominated
 * Urapopstar Awards 19 — Best Collaboration "Survive" (featuring Paulo Araujo) — Won
 * Urapopstar Awards 19 — Best Promotion — Nominated
 * Urapopstar Awards 20 — Best Single "License to Kill" — Nominated
 * Urapopstar Awards 20 — Best Overall Artist — Won
 * Urapopstar Awards 20 — Best Female — Nominated
 * Urapopstar Awards 20 — Best Video "License to Kill" — Nominated
 * Urapopstar Awards 20 — Best Collaboration "Promotion" — Nominated
 * Urapopstar Awards 20 — Best Promotion — Nominated
 * Urapopstar Awards 21 — Best Single "Money Equals Love" — Won
 * Urapopstar Awards 21 — Best Album UNCENSORED — Won
 * Urapopstar Awards 21 — Best Female — Nominated
 * Urapopstar Awards 21 — Best Pop — Nominated
 * Urapopstar Awards 21 — Best Female Video 'Show Me Your Heart' — Nominated
 * Urapopstar Awards 21 — Best Live Act — Nominated
 * Urapopstar Awards 21 — Best Promotion — Nominated
 * Urapopstar Awards 22 — Best Collaboration "The Act Is Over" (with Kleo) — Won

URAPS Rate
 * URAPS Rate 15 — #6
 * URAPS Rate 16 — #12
 * URAPS Rate 17 — #1
 * URAPS Rate 18 — #27
 * URAPS Rate 19 - #4