Taylor Swift recently became the first singer to occupy all top 10 spots on the Billboard Hot 100 in a week after the release of her new album Midnights. 

Taylor Swift’s Anti-Hero replaced Unholy by Sam Smith and Kim Petras, who had previously held the top slot for a week. 

Smith and Kim Petras made history as the first publicly non-binary solo artist and the transgender solo artist to have their song ranked no. 1 on Billboard’s Hot 100 song chart.

Who is Kim Petras?

Kim Petras is a German singer and songwriter, who was born on August 27, 1992. Petras was the youngest of two siblings and was raised in Cologne, Germany. 

From early childhood, Kim Petras started identifying herself as a girl and in 2006 she appeared on a German television current affairs show in which she discussed her medical gender transition. 

Petras started her modeling career in 2007 and was the face of a German chain of hair salons.

In 2008, Kim Petras had undergone sex reassignment surgery at the age of 16 and The Daily Telegraph announced Petras as the youngest person in the world to have had the surgery at that time.

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Kim Petras’s Career

The singles Fade Away, Last Forever, Die for You and Boomerang were all released by Kim Petras under Joyce Records between 2008 and 2009. In the following year, she released her debut extended play, One Piece of Tape, under the banner of Bionic Ballroom.

In 2013, Petras appeared on two singles by German DJ Klaas, Flight to Paris and Heartbeat. Over the following few years, Kim Petras also started making music with renowned producers like C.J. Abraham, The Stereotypes,  Aaron Joseph, Stephen Dresser, Johan Jones Wetterberg, and Edward Ellis.

In August 2017, she released her debut single I Don’t Want It at All and the song went on to reach the Spotify Global Viral chart. In 2018, Petras released Turn Off the Light, a Halloween-themed extended play and in the very next year Petras also announced volume 2 of the same song 

Petras also collaborated with Madison Beer to appear on K/DA’s All Out, which was released on November 6, 2020. The song Villain from the album also reached the top 10 in New Zealand and is on the US World Songs list. 

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Her recent release, Unholy with Sam Smith, became popular on TikTok and peaked at no. 1 in many countries, including Australia, the UK, and New Zealand. Additionally, it marked her debut on the American Billboard Hot 100, topping the list in October 2022.