Harry Edward Styles (born 1 February 1994) is an English singer, songwriter, and actor. His musical career began in 2010 as a solo contestant on the British music competition series The X Factor. Following his elimination, he was brought back to join the boy band One Direction, which went on to become one of the best-selling boy groups of all time before going on an indefinite hiatus in 2016.
Styles released his self-titled debut solo album through Columbia Records in 2017. It debuted at number one in the UK and the US and was one of the world's top-ten best-selling albums of the year, while its lead single, "Sign of the Times", topped the UK Singles Chart. Styles' second album, Fine Line (2019), debuted atop the US Billboard 200 with the biggest ever first-week sales by an English male artist, and was the most recent album to be included in Rolling Stone's "500 Greatest Albums of All Time" in 2020. Its fourth single, "Watermelon Sugar", topped the US Billboard Hot 100. Styles' third album, Harry's House (2022), broke several records and was widely acclaimed, receiving the Grammy Award for Album of the Year in 2023. Its lead single, "As It Was", became the number-one song of the year globally according to Billboard.
Styles has received various accolades, including six Brit Awards, three Grammy Awards, an Ivor Novello Award, and three American Music Awards. His film roles include Dunkirk (2017), Don't Worry Darling, and My Policeman (both 2022). Aside from music and acting, Styles is known for his flamboyant fashion. He is the first man to appear solo on the cover of Vogue.
Early life
Harry Edward Styles was born on 1 February 1994 in Redditch, Worcestershire, England, the son of office worker Anne Twist (née Selley, formerly Cox) and finance worker Desmond "Des" Styles. When he was a child, he moved with his parents and older sister, Gemma, to the village of Holmes Chapel in Cheshire. His parents divorced when he was seven years old, and his mother later remarried business partner John Cox, although they divorced years later. Through her subsequent marriage in 2013 to Robin Twist, who died of cancer in 2017, Styles gained an older stepbrother named Mike and a stepsister named Amy.
Styles said he had a "great childhood" and was always supported by his parents. As a child, he sang covers on a karaoke machine he was given by his grandfather, and the first song he recorded was Elvis Presley's "The Girl of My Best Friend". Styles attended the Holmes Chapel Comprehensive School, where he was the lead singer for the band White Eskimo, which won a local Battle of the Bands competition. At the age of 16, he worked part-time at the W. Mandeville Bakery in Holmes Chapel.
