from the moment she was born, gailyn nelson lived a charmed life. her parents first met when her mother was on a vacation with some girlfriends in sunny los angeles. it was a chance meeting, one where they literally ran into one another on the street. he was an older plastic surgeon and her mother was smitten from the get go. her friends tried to warn her about an older man who would come into her life but her mother didn't care, she only saw an opportunity to escape her life in canada. the two would have a night filled with passion and back she went to canada, keeping in touch with phone calls and the occasional letter. it wasn't serious until her mother discovered that she was pregnant. she didn't tell gailyn's father until she was six month's pregnant with the fear that she would need to raise the child on her own. he took the news as well as to be expected and planned to move his sort of girlfriend and his new daughter after the birth. the promise of marriage was also included in that deal, simply because gailyn's mother insisted upon it.

adjusting to life in los angeles was hard on gailyn's mother at first and she spent the first six months in los angeles stressed, friendless and planning a wedding to a man that she was still getting to know. even though there was strain in their relationship given the circumstances, they made it work for the sake of their child and less than a year later they were married in a lavish wedding that most girls could only dream of. as a child, gailyn never saw the strain between her parents, her only concern was smiling and being the apple of her father's eye. from the moment that she could talk, she was making sounds and singing as loud as she could, often creating words and gibberish that made absolutely no sense but it kept her and her family entertained. when gailyn turned five years old, her mother arranged for her musically inclined daughter to start piano lessons, while also juggling two more children and maintaining the lifestyle of being a plastic surgeon's wife.

when gailyn entered school she was often teased by the other children for the slight canadian accent that she had picked up by her mother. she left like an outcast, even though she had grown up in an elite circle of society. music is the place where she found the most solace and she would return home from school, playing her piano for hours until she even attempted at starting her homework. she wrote poetry and would find music to accompany it, making her own songs as a means of escape. despite being bullied, gailyn's bubbly demeanor didn't change when she was around others. she desperately wanted to be liked and would go out of her way to try and make friends and she soon acquired a close group that she could always depend upon.

when gailyn was fifteen years old her entire world would drastically change. her father had been incredibly unfaithful throughout his entire marriage and her mother had finally had enough, she filed for divorce and picked up her children and moved them back to vancouver during the school year, allowing them to visit their father only during the summer months when school was out. once again, gailyn had to figure out a new set of friends who didn't understand that she was a california girl at heart. to try and branch out, her mother suggested that she enroll in some theater classes, where she could perform and do something that she loved doing. acting was a means of escape for her and she kept with it until her senior year of high school, when she applied to be a drama major in a local university, to adhere to mother's wishes of not moving back to los angeles. she knew that her mother was still struggling to raise her younger siblings and she was more than happy to help out whenever she could.

in 2007, gailyn accompanied a friend to the auditions for canadian idol. when she got there, her friend had convinced her that she should audition as well and, though she didn't think she would make it far, she managed to move along to the next round where her friend did not. she didn't even have a song prepared but had written an original song that she sang for the audition, impressing the judges and she continued with the competition. it was a whirlwind experience and one that taught her a great deal. her bubbly personality, along with her strong vocals, kept her through the competition until she reached the final three, where she was eliminated. it was a blow to her ego at first but gailyn wasn't going to give up on her dreams. she scored a record deal and recorded her debut album, which was released in 2008.

gailyn was never one to rush things and she slowly began working on her second album. even though her label wanted to get the record out as fast as they could for fear that her popularity would decrease, gailyn never focused on that. she wanted to make a record that she could be proud of and if that took quite a bit of time, she was prepared to do just that. when her first single off the new album dropped in 2011, it gained popularity first on twitter, with a chance tweet from a fellow canadian popstar who liked the music. little did gailyn know that would be the beginning of her popularity rising. when the album was released it was a hit in canada, as well as the united states and she signed to a joint worldwide deal and started touring in support of other artists across the world.

when it came time to write her third album, gailyn was feeling the burn out and once again, wouldn't feel pressured by anyone to make a record. the label had the pressure on her to release in 2014 and she kept pushing it back, stating that it wasn't ready, when she got a call to do cinderella on broadway. new york was exactly the chnage of scenery that she needed and it was nice to get back to her theatrical roots. her label was still pressuring her to release her album and she promised that it would come in summer of 2015, after she managed to complete her broadway run and could return to writing. when the album dropped it was met with positive critical reception and gailyn was simply proud that she didn't let anyone else dictate how she was going to release in music.

gailyn recently starred as frenchy in grease live on fox and she continues to write. she splits her time between los angeles, whether she has maintained a relationship with her father, and vancouver. despite her success, gailyn is still that bubbly girl who means well, even though she has a tendency for being naive when it comes to relationships and friendships. she's managed to get burned a lot along the way, but she views it as a growing experience and wonderful material for her blossoming music career.