Khalin Aurelio Riggs (born november 16, 1986) is an American actor, singer, songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, record producer, and choreographer. As an actor he is best known for his role of Chad Danforth in the High School Musical series and is a four time Grammy winning musical artist. as well, riggs has written and produced hits for multiple artists.
Khalin Riggs was born on november 19, 1982 to marita and randell riggs. His father is biracial (african american and caucasian) and his mother was a first generation american of polynesian and spanish descent. his grandmother, retta riggs (think donyale luna's career), was considered as the first black supermodel and became known most famously for being the first ever black model to appear on the cover of british vogue. however, her career was tarnished after she became pregnant due to an affair with a white, and married photographer. retta riggs continued to appear in television until the late 70's where she moved behind the scenes in the wardrobe department for various films the following fifteen years.
riggs mother died when he was ten as a result of a pulmonary embolism and his father, unable to care for riggs and his three siblings, began working offshore leaving him in the care of his grandmother. when riggs was 22, his father suffered an accident that rendered him a paraplegic along with other internal complications, and he was returned to los angeles where he currently resides in a home.
few videos still exist of riggs first performance, a medley of michael jackson hits performed on a localized television talent contest while he was still in middle school, but it was enough to get the then thirteen year old noticed by the right people. Tasked with trying to help support his family, it was either an after school job or this audition for a disney film that had been posted in the hall of his performing arts charter school. This decision would lead to a supporting role in the 2003 film Holes as well as Walking Tall opposite dwayne 'the rock' johnson the following year. however, the role riggs is best known for is that of chad danforth in the high school musical series that spanned from 2006 to 2008. Riggs revealed in 2013 he had originally auditioned for the role of troy bolton, being told he "wasn't what they were looking for for the part" before being offered the role of his best friend, and reticent thesbian, Chad danforth.
while still under contract with disney in 2008, khalin reached out to contacts at atlantic records in the hope of translating his fame to something more permanent once he was released from the deal. with a group of friends, and under the psuedonym 'si pero', he began writing, producing, and providing backing vocals for other artists. in 2009, riggs began to sculpture a more mature image in the cw show the beautiful life: tbl, about a group of models hoping to make it big, that ran for only seven episodes before being removed for low ratings. the series was replaced in the line up by reruns of Americas next top model. the irony of this was lost on no one.
after success as a guest vocalist for b.o.b. and travie mccoy, riggs released 'just the way you are' in 2010 as the lead single from his forthcoming album doo-wops and hooligans. four following songs off the album broke the billboard top 100, the album itself debuting at number three on the billboard top 200. riggs also recorded a song for The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn – Part 1 Original Motion Picture Soundtrack entitled "it will rain" that peaked at number three. On February 13, 2011, Riggs won his first Grammy Award for Best Male Pop Vocal Performance, having received six nominations. He was nominated the following year again for six categories, however he lost all of them, five of those losses being to adele.
2012 saw the release of unorthodox jukebox which reached number two on the billboard top 200 chart. a total of five songs from this album also broke the singles top 100. On September 8, 2013, NFL announced that Mars would headline the performance at the Super Bowl XLVIII halftime show on February 2, 2014 and marked the first performance by an artist under the age of 30. It was the most watched half time show, drawing in a record rating of 115.3 viewers before being surpassed by katy perry's show in 2015. in december 2013, riggs was named billboard's artist of the year and ranked number one on the 2014 Forbes list 30 under 30.
after success with the mark ronson collaboration 'uptown funk' in 2014, riggs returned to the studio to begin work on his 3rd album due to be released in march 2016. in 2015 it was reported that riggs had been offered to return for the superbowl 50 halftime show as the performer. riggs confirmed he was involved in the superbowl 50 halftime as a curator and announced coldplay as the featured artist. later both beyonce and riggs were added onto the line up for the third most watched half time show in history. in january 2016, riggs announced that the album was pushed back later on in the year due to the superbowl. in march 2016, riggs and mark ronson won the Grammy Award for Best Pop Solo Performance and Record of the Year, bringing his total wins to four.
