Avril Lavigne, a small-town kid who couldn't sit still in class, started amazing people with her voice and character at around age 2. A wonderfully up-front and outrageous 17-year-old with everything it takes to reach stardom-completely on her own terms. "I'm just coming out and I'm going to clearly be myself-I write what I feel, I never worry what others think, " Avril declares. "I'm gonna dress what's me, I'm gonna act what's me and I'm gonna sing what's me."
A middle child who "always wanted to be the center of attention," she was bound to bust out of Napanee, Ontario, population 5,000. "I always knew this was what I had to do," she says. "I remember when I was really young, standing on my bed like it was a stage, singing at the top of my lungs and visualizing thousands of people surrounding me."