Stacy Ann "Fergie" Ferguson (/ˈfɜːrɡi/ FUR-ghee; born March 27, 1975) is an American singer, songwriter, actress, and businesswoman. After earning recognition as a child actress in the 1980s, Fergie achieved international fame as a member of the Black Eyed Peas from 2002 to 2018. During her tenure with the group, she also achieved success with her solo career, film and television appearances, and business ventures.

As a child, Fergie starred on the children's television series Kids Incorporated from 1984 to 1989, and voiced Sally Brown in two Peanuts television specials and in The Charlie Brown and Snoopy Show (1984–1986). She later co-founded the girl group Wild Orchid, performing on two of the group's albums. Fergie then joined the Black Eyed Peas in 2002, from which she achieved her commercial breakthrough and with whom she recorded four albums. Her debut solo album, The Dutchess (2006), peaked at number two on the US Billboard 200 and spawned the Billboard Hot 100 number-one singles "Big Girls Don't Cry", "Glamorous" and "London Bridge", as well as the top-five singles "Clumsy" and "Fergalicious". Her second solo album, Double Dutchess (2017) — accompanied by a namesake film subtitled Seeing Double — peaked at number 19 on the Billboard 200 and spawned the top 40 singles "L.A. Love (La La)" and "M.I.L.F. $".

Fergie continued acting into the 2000s, appearing in the disaster film Poseidon (2006), the double feature Grindhouse (2007), the musical drama Nine (2009), and the comedy film Marmaduke (2010). She also pursued other ventures, releasing the fragrance Outspoken with Avon Products in 2010, and launching four other fragrances and two footwear lines. She began hosting the reality series The Four: Battle for Stardom in 2018.

Fergie has sold over 30 million records within the United States alone, and her accolades include eight Grammy Awards and a Screen Actors Guild Award nomination. Billboard named her Woman of the Year in 2010, and ranked her among the top female artists of the 2000s decade and the 21st century.

Stacy Ann Ferguson was born on March 27, 1975, in Hacienda Heights, California, to Terri (née Gore) and Jon Patrick Ferguson. She has a younger sister named Dana Ferguson; their ancestry includes English, Irish, Mexican, and Scottish. Ferguson was raised Roman Catholic and attended Mesa Robles Middle School and Glen A. Wilson High School. She was a cheerleader, straight-A student, spelling bee champion, and Girl Scout.

Fergie studied dance and began to do voiceover work. She provided the voice for Sally Brown in two made-for-television Peanuts cartoons, It's Flashbeagle, Charlie Brown (1984) and Snoopy's Getting Married, Charlie Brown (1985), as well as on four episodes of The Charlie Brown and Snoopy Show. From 1984 to 1989, Fergie starred on the TV show Kids Incorporated and was the longest running cast member. She starred in the first six of the show's nine seasons. Fergie was a member of the female trio Wild Orchid, which she fronted with Stefanie Ridel and fellow Kids Incorporated star Renee Sandstrom. By 1992, the girls began meeting with record labels, but they still could not get a recording contract. They eventually signed a music publishing deal with Sony Publishing before signing a record contract with RCA Records in 1994.

Wild Orchid released their self-titled debut album in March 1997, which charted at #153 on the Billboard 200. In September 1998, they released their second album, Oxygen, which was a commercial failure, only selling 200,000 copies worldwide. From June 16 to August 28, 1999, they opened for Cher's Do You Believe? tour alongside Cyndi Lauper, which took them to 52 cities across the United States and Canada. They completed a third album, which their record label declined to release, and Fergie left the group in September 2001. In 2006, Fergie told Entertainment Weekly that both frustrations with the band's image and personal drug problems led her to leave Wild Orchid.

The Black Eyed Peas were recording their third album, Elephunk (2003), when A&R Music Coordinator Dante Santiago asked will.i.am to invite Fergie to try out for the song "Shut Up". She secured the gig and instantly bonded with the trio, going on to record five additional songs on the album. The following spring, shortly before Elephunk came out, Interscope Records chairman Jimmy Iovine offered Fergie a permanent spot to take over vocal duties and fill the void left by background singer Kim Hill's departure in 2000. In a positive review of the Black Eyed Peas' new-found style, Rolling Stone noted that since 2002, when the group "hired a blond bombshell named Stacy "Fergie" Ferguson and gave up their pursuit of backpack-rapper cred, they have made a kind of spiritual practice of recording futuristic songs – a total aesthetic commitment that extends from their garish wardrobes to their United Colors of Benetton worldview." From Elephunk came "Where Is the Love?", which became the Black Eyed Peas' first major hit: it peaked at number eight on the Billboard Hot 100 and topped the charts in several other countries. The album subsequently spawned "Shut Up", which topped the charts in many markets. The third single from the album, "Hey Mama", reached the top 10 in several European countries and later peaked at number twenty-three in the United States in 2004.^{[citation needed]}