Fiona Apple McAfee-Maggart (born September 13, 1977) is an American singer-songwriter. All five of her albums have reached the top 20 on the Billboard 200 since 1996, and as of 2021, she has sold over 15 million records worldwide. Apple has received numerous accolades, including three Grammy Awards, two MTV Video Music Awards, and a Billboard Music Video Award. Three of her albums appear on Rolling Stone's "500 Greatest Albums of All Time" list.

The youngest daughter of the actor Brandon Maggart, Apple was born in New York City and was raised alternating between her mother's home in New York and her father's in Los Angeles. She studied piano as a child and began writing songs when she was eight years old. Her debut album, Tidal (1996), comprises songs written during her teens, and won Best Female Rock Performance at the 39th Annual Grammy Awards for its single "Criminal". Her second album, produced by Jon Brion, When the Pawn... (1999), was met with critical acclaim, and received platinum certification by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA).

For her third album, Extraordinary Machine (2005), Apple again collaborated with Brion and began recording the album in 2002. Apple, however, was reportedly unhappy with the production and opted not to release the record, leading fans to protest Epic Records, erroneously believing that the label was withholding its release. The album was eventually re-produced without Brion and released in October 2005. The album was certified gold, and nominated for a Grammy Award for Best Pop Vocal Album. In 2012, she released her fourth studio album, The Idler Wheel..., which received critical praise and was followed by a tour of the United States, also receiving a nomination for Best Alternative Music Album at the 55th Annual Grammy Awards. Apple's fifth studio album, Fetch the Bolt Cutters (2020), won two Grammy Awards: Best Alternative Music Album and Best Rock Performance for the lead single "Shameika."

Fiona Apple was born Fiona Apple McAfee-Maggart on September 13, 1977, in New York City to singer Diane McAfee and actor Brandon Maggart, who met when both were cast in the Broadway musical Applause. Her father is from Tennessee, and through him, Apple has Melungeon ancestry. Her maternal grandparents were dancer Millicent Green and big band vocalist Johnny McAfee. Her sister Amber sings cabaret under the stage name Maude Maggart, and actor Garett Maggart is her half brother. Apple grew up in Morningside Gardens in Harlem with her mother and sister, but spent summers with her father in Los Angeles, California.

She attended the private Episcopal school St. Hilda's & St. Hugh's School and later Alexander Hamilton High School (Los Angeles), as well as being homeschooled. As she studied piano, she would often transcribe guitar tablature into standard notation. Apple later began to play along with jazz standards, discovering Billie Holiday and Ella Fitzgerald, who became major influences.

Since childhood, Apple has struggled with obsessive–compulsive disorder, depression, and anxiety, and has also been diagnosed with complex post-traumatic stress disorder. At age twelve she was raped outside the apartment she shared with her mother, step-father, and sister in Harlem. She subsequently developed an eating disorder, purposely slimming her developing body, which she saw as "bait" for potential predators. "I definitely did have an eating disorder", she recalled. "What was really frustrating for me was that everyone thought I was anorexic, and I wasn't. I was just really depressed and self-loathing." She also described how her OCD developed into avoidant/restrictive food intake disorder, requiring food to be a certain color or shape.

After the rape, Apple began attending Model Mugging classes, practicing self-defense, but continued to suffer panic attacks while walking home from school, which led to her relocating to Los Angeles to live with her father for one year. In Los Angeles, Apple attended Alexander Hamilton High School for her second year.

In a 2000 interview, Apple stated that, despite speculation from journalists, she did not write songs about the trauma surrounding her rape: "It doesn't get into the writing. It's a boring pain. It's such a fuckin' old pain that, you know, there's nothing poetic about it."