Todrick Hall Instagram – As of today I have uploaded 731 videos to youtube that have collected me over 900,000,000 views (thank you all for that) But they weren’t always glamorous videos. This is the first video I ever uploaded of myself singing my favorite Boys II Men song “It’s so hard to say goodbye to yesterday.” Many of you may know this, but I am not and never was very confident in my voice. I grew up training to be a dancer since the age of 7, and singing was just something my mom forced me to do at church lol. But, at age 20 I made my Broadway debut in Oprah Winfrey’s “The Color Purple” dancing right my idol Fantasia Barrino (who I voted for a billion times btw). I got to see first hand how American Idol changed her life and it lit something inside of me to want to prove to myself that I could sing. I had worked at Six Flags over Texas and had a little experience singing on stage, but I was always the dancer who could kind of sing, never a singer who also danced. I auditioned for American Idol years before I actually got onto the show (fun fact) and because I was doing 8 shows a week on Broadway at the time, my voice was absolutely fried. I got all the way to the judges and choked and got told no. For me it confirmed that I wasn’t a singer, and I actually started my youtube channel because I was afraid they’d show my audition and I wanted there to be online evidence that I could actually sing. Moral of the story, I went back to idol and made it to the semi finals and then amassed an audience of over 7 million followers across all social platforms. Never give up. When life closes one door in your face, don’t walk away…knock again. Opportunity might just answer the next time. Enjoying going down memory lane, reposting my videos and giving context about what was going on in my life at the time I made them. Look closely, one of the only videos providing evidence that I no longer have my original teeth. 🦷 😂 Los Angeles, California