Background information
Birth name Stephanie Hwang
Also known as Tiffany, Fany, Mi-Young, Fany Fany Tiffany, Tippani, Mushroom, Manager Hwang, Myong, Jackson Hwang, Rapper Hwang, DJ Hwang, Secretary Hwang, Ddilfany
Born August 1, 1989 (age 23)
San Francisco, California, United States
Genres K-Pop, Pop, R&B, hip hop, dance-pop
Occupations Singer, TV presenter, promotional model, entertainer, rapper, dancer, actress
Instruments Vocals, flute
Years active 2007–present
Labels S.M. Entertainment
Universal Music Japan
Interscope Records
Associated acts Girls' Generation
Girls' Generation-TTS
SM Town
Biography
Tiffany was born in San Francisco, California, in the same hospital as fellow band-mate Jessica Jung.[1] Although both born in California, the two would coincidentally end up attending and graduating from the same high school in Seoul, Korea Kent Foreign School, during their preparations for debut in the same group. Tiffany grew up in Diamond Bar, California, attending South Pointe Middle School and Diamond Bar High School.
Tiffany was scouted whilst performing on stage in her home country. She was invited to audition at the SM Entertainment Starlight Casting System and joined the company on October 2004 in Los Angeles, California at age 15.[2][3] Despite initial objections from her father, she recalls packing up her former life and moving to South Korea after receiving the permission to do so within three weeks of making the decision.[4] She trained for 3 years and 7 months before debuting.[5]
Tiffany is the youngest of three siblings. Her older sister studied anthropology at Berkeley.[4][6] For much of her early career when approached with the topic of mothers or family, Tiffany would often refer to her father or both parents; on a radio broadcast she stated that she missed her mother who was far away and she had not seen her in some time.[7] However, in late 2009 she said for the first time in public that her mother had already died.[8] She later said that her mother had died two years before she herself became a trainee, and that she is somewhat distant with her father, all of her immediate family living overseas.[9] In August 2009 Tiffany was absent from a group filming in order to fly to the US and attend the funeral of her grandfather.[10]
[edit]Health
In 2008, Tiffany was diagnosed with vocal nodules, wherein a mass of tissue grows on the vocal folds due to strain or overuse. The condition gave her dysphonia, causing a hoarseness in her voice as well as affecting the range of her singing voice. After receiving treatment her voice returned to normalcy, but the condition began affecting her voice even more drastically throughout the latter half of 2009, causing her to take a break from activities to receive hospital treatment in September.[11] She also experienced difficulties due to the disorder mid-2010, a company representative stating she would be taking a short hiatus while she was hospitalized again.[12][13] While treatment has been successful, Tiffany has stated that her current voice is different from her voice previous to contracting vocal nodules, although it is not necessarily something she views as a bad thing.[14]
Throughout her career Tiffany has suffered several injuries requiring medical attention. She fell after a performance of "Gee", injuring her left ankle and being put in a cast. Tiffany continued to perform with the group, albeit either sitting or standing to the side stationary.[15] Tiffany also suffered a wrist injury while filming for Let's Go Dream Team in early 2010 and was seen wearing a cast while continuing activities.[16] In August 2010, Tiffany suffered an injury to her right ankle after taking a fall during the SMTown Live '10 World Tour in Seoul. Although not a serious injury, she was put in a cast in order to make sure she would be healed enough to perform at Girls' Generation's upcoming Japanese showcase.[17] She suffered a more severe fall two months later during another performance, injuring her posterior cruciate ligament. Due to this, she was withdrawn from the group's promotions of "Hoot", her absence from the spotlight lasting almost a month until she returned to join her fellow group-mates activities in Japan. The issue of Tiffany's return after injury was a topic of great interest within both the Korean and Japanese media.[18][19]
[edit]Career
[edit]Girls' Generation
Main article: Girls' Generation
Tiffany serves as a vocalist of the group. Tiffany is also a member of a Girls' Generation's sub-group, Girls' Generation-TTS along with Taeyeon and Seohyun. Their first mini-album "Twinkle (EP)" was released on 2 May 2012.
[edit]Solo singing career
In 2008, she released two singles with fellow Girls' Generation members Jessica and Seohyun — the first called "Oppa Nappa" ("오빠 나빠", "Bad Boy")[20] and the second titled "Mabinogi (It's Fantastic!)", a theme song for a video game.[21]
Tiffany has also participated in the OST of SBS drama Jamyeonggo with the song By Myself 나 혼자서),[22][23] and was featured in a duet with K.Will in A Girl, Meets Love (소녀, 사랑을 만나다).[24]
She was also featured in Oh! My Love to You (너만을 느끼며) by The Blue, alongside bandmate Sooyoung.[25]
She also sang the theme song for Caribbean Bay with her fellow members Taeyeon, Seohyun, Sunny, Jessica, Yuri and k-pop boy group 2PM.
In 2012, Tiffany has participated in the OST of Love Rain which bandmate Yoona is a lead actress in. She and Kyuhyun of Super Junior sang the OST for To The Beautiful You.
[edit]Show hosting career
Apart from all her solo works, Tiffany was the co-host of Mnet's Sonyeon Sonyeo Gayo Baekseo (Korean: 소년소녀 가요백서), along with Kim Hyesung from November 5, 2007 to June 13, 2008.[26] Tiffany, along with fellow Girls' Generation member Yuri, was an MC on MBC's Show! Music Core. She left after a farewell on July 31, 2010 to focus on Girls’ Generation's debuting in Japan.[27][28]
On December 25, 2010, she was a host MC for Christmas Show! Music Core along side Girls’ Generation's Yuri. She was an MC for the 2010 SBS Gayo Daejeon award ceremony which was held on December 31 at the MBC Dream Center with Yuri and actor Ryu Si Won.[29]
She was also the MC for the 50th Anniversary Music Wave Concert which was held on March 12, 2011 together with Yuri and Nichkhun.
On August 13, 2011 she was the MC for 2011 Incheon Korean Music Wave together with Yuri[30] and also for K-Pop All Star Live in Niigata which was held on August 20, 2011 together with Yuri & Sooyoung.[31]
On October 11, 2011 Yuri and Tiffany return to "Show! Music Core" as permanent MCs after a 1 year and 3 months absence.
On November 12, 2011 she was a MC for K-POP Music Festival in Sydney together with Yuri.
On April 7, 2012 she hosted the 2012 Korean Music Wave in Bangkok together with Taeyeon and Nichkhun.[32]
As of April 14, 2012, she is hosting Show! Music Core together with Taeyeon and Seohyun.
On November 10, 2012 Tiffany, along with Yonghwa of CNBLUE, and Kikwang of Beast, have co-hosted the 2012 SBS Kpop Super Concert held at the Verizon Wireless Amphitheater in Irvine, California where numerous stars, including Girls' Generation, Beast, and CNBLUE have performed.
[edit]Acting career
From 25 November 2011 to 29 January 2012, Hwang played Carmen Diaz in the musical Fame along with Eunhyuk of Super Junior, Son Ho Young, Go Eun Seong, Kim Chan Ho, Shin Ui Jeong, Lina of The Grace, Choi Ju Ri, KoN and Kim Jung Mo of TRAX.
