Tila Tequila 2006-2009: Solo career, and A Shot at Love
What happened in 2006?
What happened to Tila Tequila in 2006?
During the first season of Fuse TV's dance show, Pants-Off Dance-Off, on which a group of contestants strip to music videos, Nguyen was the most frequent host. In April 2006, during the taping of an interview with MTV's Total Request Live VJs, will.i.am announced that Nguyen had been signed to the Will.I.Am music group, a record label under A&M Records. Despite this major-label signing, Nguyen independently released her first single "I Love U" through iTunes on February 27, 2007, justifying the independent release through her desire to become famous by herself. She also shot a music video for the song. In March 2007, Washington-based record label The Saturday Team released an EP called Sex, by Tila Tequila. On July 27, 2007, Italian website MusicBlob reported that The Saturday Team and distributor Icon Music Entertainment Services sued Nguyen over breaching her contract related to the album. However, Nguyen claimed in a MySpace bulletin that the EP was not authorized for release by her, and was removed from most retailers. The Saturday Team won a legal case, making Sex available for digital purchase. Nguyen made an appearance as one of the 12 strangers in the first game on April 6, 2007 episode of NBC's game show Identity. On March 4, 2007, she made a cameo appearance on the show "The War At Home." She also appeared as a Hooters Girl in the 2007 film I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry.  In May 2007, Nguyen began filming for a reality show which first aired on MTV on October 9, 2007, as A Shot at Love with Tila Tequila. The program was a bisexual-themed dating show where 16 straight men and 16 lesbian women competed for Nguyen's affections, the twist being that the contestants were not aware of her bisexuality until the end of the first episode. The ten-episode series was produced by SallyAnn Salsano and MTV. The show led to a heated online debate between Nguyen and conservative Christians after an article appeared on The Christian Post on September 13, 2007. After seeing the article, Nguyen wrote an impassioned response in her blog on September 28, 2007, criticizing churches for "bashing" the gay community while thanking God for saving her life. The show premiered for a second season in April 2008 and became a popular gossip subject in Asian media, such as AsianWeek. The season finale premiered July 8, 2008, the winner being Kristy Morgan who declined her "shot at love".  On October 9, 2007, Nguyen released her second official single, "Stripper Friends". A video premiered via Yahoo! Music on February 26, 2008 and was released to iTunes on March 4, 2008. The single failed to chart. In April 2008, the single "Paralyze" and its accompanying music video were released via Yahoo! Music and iTunes. The "I Love U Remixes" EP was released to digital music retailers on April 7, 2009. On December 2, 2008, Nguyen released a self-help book, Hooking Up with Tila Tequila: A Guide to Love, Fame, Happiness, Success, and Being the Life of the Party (ISBN 9781439101537). CANNOTANSWER
will.i.am announced that Nguyen had been signed to the Will.I.Am music group, a record label under A&M Records.
Nguyễn Thị Thiên Thanh (born October 24, 1981), better known by her stage names Tila Tequila, Tila Nguyen, Miss Tila and Tornado Thien, is an American television and social media personality. She first gained recognition for her active presence on social networking websites. After becoming the most popular person on Myspace, Tequila was offered the opportunity to star in her own reality television series. Her bisexuality-themed dating show, A Shot at Love with Tila Tequila (2007), aired for two seasons and became MTV's second highest-rated series premiere of that year.

Born in Singapore and raised in Houston, Texas, Tequila moved to Los Angeles in 2001 to pursue her modeling career. After being featured in numerous men's magazines (including Playboy, Stuff and Maxim), she made her reality television debut on the VH1 show Surviving Nugent (2003). Besides her career in modeling and television, Tequila also pursued her career as a recording artist and author. She was the lead singer of the bands Beyond Betty Jean and Jealousy, before launching a solo career. Her debut single "I Love U" was released in 2007 to mixed reviews. Despite having strong online sales, the song failed to enter any charts. Tequila followed with several independently released singles, including "Stripper Friends" and "Paralyze". In 2010, she released her second EP, Welcome to the Dark Side. Her book, Hooking Up With Tila Tequila: A Guide to Love, Fame, Happiness, Success, and Being the Life of the Party, was published in 2008.

After expressing her support of Adolf Hitler, and making antisemitic and white nationalist comments, she was expelled from Celebrity Big Brother.

Early life
Nguyen was born in Singapore, where her family were Vietnamese boat people, who arrived from Vietnam after the Vietnam War. Nguyen has an older brother, Daniel, and older sister, Terri. When she was one year old, the family relocated to a neighborhood in Houston, Texas and were eventually admitted to a gated community run by a strict Buddhist temple. The family left the community when Nguyen was eight.

Nguyen was nicknamed "Tila Tequila" by friends due to her apparent allergy to alcohol. In her memoir, she would later explain that she felt "confused" and "lost" by various personal family and environmental issues. She turned to writing poetry in an attempt to release powerful emotions. At age 16, Nguyen ran away to Queens, New York City, for several months. While still 16, she experienced a drive-by shooting in Houston. She reports having become pregnant and suffering a miscarriage the following year.

Nguyen graduated from Alief Hastings High School in 2000. She has cited her violent adolescence in Texas as her reason for becoming a model and moving to California in 2001. In a March 2003 interview, she revealed that she has taken some college classes but does not have a degree, stating, "I didn't want to go to college for an actual degree because there's nothing out there I like besides doing something that involves the entertainment industry."

Career

2001–2005: Modeling career, Beyond Betty Jean and Myspace

Nguyen's career began at the age of 19 when she was discovered at the Sharpstown Mall by a Playboy scout and was offered a chance to model nude for the magazine. She did a test shoot, then eventually moved to Southern California and was featured as Playboys Cybergirl of the Week on April 22, 2002, and soon thereafter she became the first Asian Cyber Girl of the Month. A few more pictorials for the magazine followed.

At age 20, Nguyen acted on her interest in rock music and started looking for bands willing to let her join. She eventually assembled a band called Beyond Betty Jean, for which she was singer and songwriter. Beyond Betty Jean eventually broke up and Nguyen started working in recording studios to sharpen her vocal skills and wrote music. Later, she became the lead singer of a band called Jealousy, which released a few songs online before breaking up. In 2003, Nguyen was a contestant on VH1's Surviving Nugent, a reality TV show where participants performed compromising tasks and stunts for rock star Ted Nugent.

Nguyen gained further popularity through the import racing scene. She has been featured on the cover of Import Tuner magazine, at car shows such as Hot Import Nights, and in the video game Street Racing Syndicate. Nguyen joined Myspace in the fall of 2003 after getting booted off of Friendster multiple times. Time magazine, in a 2006 profile of Nguyen noted her impact on the platform stating "Pre-Tila, your MySpace friends were mostly people you actually knew. Post-Tila, the biggest game on the site became Who Has the Most Friends, period, whoever they might be," also calling her, the "Queen" of the site.

2006–2009: Solo career, and A Shot at Love

During the first season of Fuse TV's dance show, Pants-Off Dance-Off, on which a group of contestants strip to music videos, Nguyen was the most frequent host. In April 2006, during the taping of an interview with MTV's Total Request Live VJs, will.i.am announced that Nguyen had been signed to the Will.I.Am music group, a record label under A&M Records. Despite this major-label signing, Nguyen independently released her first single "I Love U" through iTunes on February 27, 2007, justifying the independent release through her desire to become famous by herself. She also shot a music video for the song. In March 2007, Washington-based record label The Saturday Team released an EP called Sex, by Tila Tequila. On July 27, 2007, Italian website MusicBlob reported that The Saturday Team and distributor Icon Music Entertainment Services sued Nguyen over breaching her contract related to the album. However, Nguyen claimed in a MySpace bulletin that the EP was not authorized for release by her, and was removed from most retailers. The Saturday Team won a legal case, making Sex available for digital purchase. Nguyen made an appearance as one of the 12 strangers in the first game on April 6, 2007, episode of NBC's game show Identity. On March 4, 2007, she made a cameo appearance on the show The War At Home. She also appeared as a Hooters Girl in the 2007 film I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry.

In May 2007, Nguyen began filming for a reality show which first aired on MTV on October 9, 2007, as A Shot at Love with Tila Tequila. The program was a bisexual-themed dating show where 16 straight men and 16 lesbian women competed for Nguyen's affections, the twist being that the contestants were not aware of her bisexuality until the end of the first episode. The ten-episode series was produced by SallyAnn Salsano and MTV. The show led to a heated online debate between Nguyen and conservative Christians after an article appeared on The Christian Post on September 13, 2007. After seeing the article, Nguyen wrote an impassioned response in her blog on September 28, 2007, criticizing churches for "bashing" the gay community while thanking God for saving her life. The show premiered for a second season in April 2008 and became a popular gossip subject in Asian media, such as AsianWeek. The season finale premiered July 8, 2008, the winner being Kristy Morgan, who declined her "shot at love".

On October 9, 2007, Nguyen released her second official single, "Stripper Friends". A video premiered via Yahoo! Music on February 26, 2008, and was released to iTunes on March 4, 2008. The single failed to chart. In April 2008, the single "Paralyze" and its accompanying music video were released via Yahoo! Music and iTunes. The "I Love U Remixes" EP was released to digital music retailers on April 7, 2009. On December 2, 2008, Nguyen released a self-help book, Hooking Up with Tila Tequila: A Guide to Love, Fame, Happiness, Success, and Being the Life of the Party ().

2010–2014: Welcome to the Darkside and hiatus

By 2010, Tequila decided to reinvent her image and changed her stage name to Miss Tila. Her first single released under the new moniker was "I Fucked the DJ", along with an edited version entitled "I Love My DJ". Released under her newly established label Little Miss Trendsetter, the single received negative reviews and failed to be successful in charts. In May, she launched her celebrity gossip blog, MissTilaOMG.com, and the EP, Welcome to the Darkside, which marked a musical departure from her previous material. Influenced by classical music and artists such as Nina Simone and Billie Holiday, Welcome to the Darkside received more positive reviews. However, it did not manage to gain commercial success.

Tequila began a tour supporting the new EP and at one of her tour stops in August 2010, she appeared at the Gathering of the Juggalos, a music festival founded by hip hop duo Insane Clown Posse. She was repeatedly pelted with rocks and bottles among other objects, and she vowed to take legal action against the organizers and promoters for the event.

During this time, a sex tape featuring a lesbian threesome in which she performed was leaked. Tequila tried to buy back the tape before its release, but couldn't come to terms with Vivid Entertainment. She later starred in a sex tape that won a 2015 AVN Award for "Best Celebrity Sex Tape".

2015–present: Celebrity Big Brother and return to music
In May 2015, it was announced that Nguyen was working on new music. In June, she posted a snippet of the song "Drunk Dialing" on her Instagram and wrote it would be released in the Summer. In August, she became one of the contestants on the sixteenth season of Channel 5 reality series Celebrity Big Brother. However, she was ejected from the house after just one day, due to many viewer complaints of her controversial statements made in 2013, when she posted anti-Semitic comments and praised Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler on Facebook. Tequila posted a snippet of "Drunk Dialing" again in September and confirmed it would be released by the end of October along with a music video. In November, Tequila and her management confirmed the single would be released on December 4. Tequila also announced her own line of e-liquids for vaporizers in collaboration with Blaze Vapors.

Other ventures
In July 2001, Nguyen started the website TilasHotSpot.com, which later began redirecting to MissTila.com. Originally the site featured information, quotes, blog, and pictorials requiring adult verification and a monthly fee. Later, the site was revamped to feature all-ages content and information to promote her career, business ventures, personal information, and a premium membership section including videos, non-nude picture galleries, blogs, and chat sessions. In 2008 the site was transformed into a social network.

During 2005, Nguyen launched TilaFashion.com, a site featuring her custom line of clothing for men and women. In 2006, Nguyen created another website, TilaZone.com which features content to use on Myspace and other social networking websites including layouts, widgets, and clipart.

In December 2009, Nguyen partnered with Joe Francis to launch the now-defunct  dating website TilasHotSpotDating.com, aimed at people ages 18 and up. The site included a free membership with basic access, and paid membership for other areas of the site. Nguyen took in webcam chats on the site.

In 2010, Nguyen launched a celebrity blog site, MissTilaOMG.com, which was transformed into her personal blog in 2012.

As of 2018, Nguyen sells artwork online under the name of Tornado Thien.

Public image
Nguyen was featured on the cover of the April 2006 issue of Stuff magazine; in the interview, she claimed that her nickname "Tila Tequila" came about when she experimented with alcohol at the age of 13. She appeared on the August 2006 Maxim UK cover, was named #88 in their Hot 100 List, and also appeared in the December 2007 issue. She was ranked #100 on the Maxim Hot 100 list in 2008.

Nguyen has been featured on the front page of magazines such as Penthouse, King, Blender, and most recently Steppin' Out.

Neo-Nazism
In December 2013, Nguyen posted an article on her website titled "Why I Sympathize with Hitler: Part I". She also posted pro-Hitler and antisemitic comments on her Facebook page, as well as photos of herself as a scantily clad Nazi posing in front of a photo of the Auschwitz concentration camp. These actions angered her Facebook followers, and resulted in Facebook closing her account and removing the material in question. 

In August 2015, Tequila became a contestant in the sixteenth series of British television reality show Celebrity Big Brother, but was asked to leave the program on its second day when producers became aware of her comments and photos. She subsequently apologized for her earlier comments, blaming them on depression and drug addiction.

On May 6, 2016, Nguyen tweeted that Jewish-American political commentator Ben Shapiro should "be gassed and sent back to Israel" and later posted that "There are only two things in this world, for which I would gladly sacrifice my own life; the destruction of all Jews and preservation of the white race" and "You know what will help Asians earn respect? An Asian version of Adolf Hitler… I want that person to be me; I want to save the world from this Zionist disease!". 

In June 2016, Tila Tequila accused Sarah Silverman and the Jews of killing Jesus before saying the comedian was next on a "celebrity sacrifice" list.

On November 19, 2016, she attended an alt-right National Policy Institute meeting celebrating the election of Donald Trump, organized by white supremacist Richard B. Spencer, and posted photos on social media of herself doing a Nazi salute. One was posted to Twitter with the text "Seig heil!" [sic] and a raised hand. On November 22, 2016, her account was suspended by Twitter. Consequently, she joined Gab.

Personal life
On March 7, 2012, it was reported that Tequila had agreed to check into rehab after having reportedly "almost died" from an attempted suicide by overdosing on pills. The incident caused her to be hospitalized from a brain aneurysm. Tequila completed her rehab treatment on April 5, 2012.

Tequila has expressed her belief that the earth is not a sphere but is flat. In 2018, she began using another stage name, Tornado Thien.

Sexuality 
By the end of 2007, Tequila was linked to the winner of her dating show A Shot at Love with Tila Tequila, Bobby Banhart. In January 2008, she revealed that she and Banhart had ended their relationship. Shortly afterwards, Banhart posted a message on his Myspace stating he had never dated Tequila and that she "never called him after the last show and no one would give him her number." Tequila later came out as a lesbian rather than a bisexual and stated that she wanted to pick the show's runner-up Dani Campbell but the producers made her pick Banhart.

In March 2018, Tequila uploaded a video to Youtube to confess she was neither lesbian nor bisexual; she only pretended to be in order to create ratings for A Shot at Love with Tila Tequila and had a boyfriend while filming the show. Additionally, she associated homosexuality with the Devil and referred to former contestants of the show as "degenerate" and "disgusting."

Relationships and children 
On December 9, 2009, Tequila stated she was engaged to heiress Casey Johnson, daughter of businessman Woody Johnson, and was photographed with a diamond ring. Johnson died on January 4, 2010, of complications resulting from diabetes.

Tequila began dating musician Thomas Paxton Whitaker (born 1971) in 2013, which ended due to Whitaker's financial problems. On April 18, 2014, Tequila confirmed her pregnancy on her Facebook page. Tequila gave birth to her first daughter, Isabella Monroe Nguyen, on November 16, 2014. 

In September 2018, Tila gave birth to her second child, a daughter named Annabelle.

Legal issues 
On September 6, 2009, Tequila was allegedly choked and restrained by former boyfriend Shawne Merriman, who was later arrested. San Diego district attorney Bonnie Dumanis decided not to charge Merriman after her office spent three days reviewing reports from the San Diego County Sheriff's Department. On November 17, 2009, Tequila sued Merriman for $1.5 million. Several weeks later, Merriman countersued, alleging intentional interference with contract, unfair competition, and trademark infringement. She declined to respond to his more recent actions and a default judgment was entered in his favor for $2 million. However, the default judgment was later set aside in January 2010. In February 2010, both sides jointly moved the court to dismiss the claim, and the court dismissed the case on the same day.

Discography

Filmography
 I Now Pronounce You Chuck & Larry (2007)
 Masterminds (2013)

Bibliography
 Hooking Up with Tila Tequila: A Guide to Love, Fame, Happiness, Success, and Being the Life of the Party (2008)

Awards and nominations

References

External links

1981 births
Living people
21st-century American actresses
21st-century American businesswomen
21st-century American businesspeople
Alt-right
American women in electronic music
American fashion designers
American female adult models
American women singer-songwriters
American hip hop singers
American women memoirists
21st-century American memoirists
American music industry executives
American music managers
American neo-Nazis
American pop rock singers
American talent agents
American conspiracy theorists
American women bloggers
American bloggers
American female models
Big Brother (British TV series) contestants
Flat Earth proponents
Participants in American reality television series
Singaporean emigrants to the United States
21st-century American women singers
21st-century American singers
American singer-songwriters
American women fashion designers
Singaporean people of Vietnamese descent
Don Juan Manuel's Tales of Count Lucanor, in Spanish Libro de los ejemplos del conde Lucanor y de Patronio (Book of the Examples of Count Lucanor and of Patronio), also commonly known as El Conde Lucanor, Libro de Patronio, or Libro de los ejemplos (original Old Castilian: Libro de los enxiemplos del Conde Lucanor et de Patronio), is one of the earliest works of prose in Castilian Spanish. It was first written in 1335.

The book is divided into four parts. The first and most well-known part is a series of 51 short stories (some no more than a page or two) drawn from various sources, such as Aesop and other classical writers, and Arabic folktales.

Tales of Count Lucanor was first printed in 1575 when it was published at Seville under the auspices of Argote de Molina. It was again printed at Madrid in 1642, after which it lay forgotten for nearly two centuries.

Purpose and structure

A didactic, moralistic purpose, which would color so much of the Spanish literature to follow (see Novela picaresca), is the mark of this book. Count Lucanor engages in conversation with his advisor Patronio, putting to him a problem ("Some man has made me a proposition..." or "I fear that such and such person intends to...") and asking for advice. Patronio responds always with the greatest humility, claiming not to wish to offer advice to so illustrious a person as the Count, but offering to tell him a story of which the Count's problem reminds him. (Thus, the stories are "examples" [ejemplos] of wise action.) At the end he advises the Count to do as the protagonist of his story did.

Each chapter ends in more or less the same way, with slight variations on: "And this pleased the Count greatly and he did just so, and found it well. And Don Johán (Juan) saw that this example was very good, and had it written in this book, and composed the following verses." A rhymed couplet closes, giving the moral of the story.

Origin of stories and influence on later literature
Many of the stories written in the book are the first examples written in a modern European language of various stories, which many other writers would use in the proceeding centuries. Many of the stories he included were themselves derived from other stories, coming from western and Arab sources.

Shakespeare's The Taming of the Shrew has the basic elements of Tale 35, "What Happened to a Young Man Who Married a Strong and Ill-tempered Woman".

Tale 32, "What Happened to the King and the Tricksters Who Made Cloth" tells the story that Hans Christian Andersen made popular as The Emperor's New Clothes.

Story 7, "What Happened to a Woman Named Truhana", a version of Aesop's The Milkmaid and Her Pail, was claimed by Max Müller to originate in the Hindu cycle Panchatantra.

Tale 2, "What happened to a good Man and his Son, leading a beast to market," is the familiar fable The miller, his son and the donkey.

In 2016, Baroque Decay released a game under the name "The Count Lucanor". As well as some protagonists' names, certain events from the books inspired past events in the game.

The stories

The book opens with a prologue which introduces the characters of the Count and Patronio. The titles in the following list are those given in Keller and Keating's 1977 translation into English. James York's 1868 translation into English gives a significantly different ordering of the stories and omits the fifty-first.

 What Happened to a King and His Favorite 
 What Happened to a Good Man and His Son 
 How  King Richard of England Leapt into the Sea against the Moors
 What a Genoese Said to His Soul When He Was about to Die 
 What Happened to a Fox and a Crow Who Had a Piece of Cheese in His Beak
 How the Swallow Warned the Other Birds When She Saw Flax Being Sown 
 What Happened to a Woman Named Truhana 
 What Happened to a Man Whose Liver Had to Be Washed 
 What Happened to Two Horses Which Were Thrown to the Lion 
 What Happened to a Man Who on Account of Poverty and Lack of Other Food Was Eating Bitter Lentils 
 What Happened to a Dean of  Santiago de Compostela and Don Yllán, the Grand Master of Toledo
 What Happened to the Fox and the Rooster 
 What Happened to a Man Who Was Hunting Partridges 
 The Miracle of Saint Dominick When He Preached against the Usurer 
 What Happened to Lorenzo Suárez at the Siege of Seville 
 The Reply that count Fernán González Gave to His Relative Núño Laynes 
 What Happened to a Very Hungry Man Who Was Half-heartedly Invited to Dinner 
 What Happened to Pero Meléndez de Valdés When He Broke His Leg 
 What Happened to the Crows and the Owls 
 What Happened to a King for Whom a Man Promised to Perform Alchemy 
 What Happened to a Young King and a Philosopher to Whom his Father Commended Him 
 What Happened to the Lion and the Bull 
 How the Ants Provide for Themselves 
 What Happened to the King Who Wanted to Test His Three Sons 
 What Happened to the Count of Provence and How He Was Freed from Prison by the Advice of Saladin
 What Happened to the Tree of Lies 
 What Happened to an Emperor and to  Don Alvarfáñez Minaya and Their Wives 
 What Happened in Granada to Don Lorenzo Suárez Gallinato When He Beheaded the Renegade Chaplain 
 What Happened to a Fox Who Lay down in the Street to Play Dead 
 What Happened to King Abenabet of  Seville and Ramayquía His Wife 
 How a Cardinal Judged between the Canons of Paris and the Friars Minor 
 What Happened to the King and the Tricksters Who Made Cloth 
 What Happened to Don Juan Manuel's Saker Falcon and an Eagle and a Heron 
 What Happened to a Blind Man Who Was Leading Another 
 What Happened to a Young Man Who Married a Strong and Ill-tempered Woman
 What Happened to a Merchant When He Found His Son and His Wife Sleeping Together 
 What Happened to Count Fernán González with His Men after He Had Won the Battle of Hacinas 
 What Happened to a Man Who Was Loaded down with Precious Stones and Drowned in the River 
 What Happened to a Man and a Swallow and a Sparrow 
 Why the Seneschal of Carcassonne Lost His Soul 
 What Happened to a King of Córdova Named Al-Haquem 
 What Happened to a Woman of Sham Piety 
 What Happened to Good and Evil and the Wise Man and the Madman 
 What Happened to Don Pero Núñez the Loyal, to Don Ruy González de Zavallos, and to Don Gutier Roiz de Blaguiello with Don Rodrigo the Generous 
 What Happened to a Man Who Became the Devil's Friend and Vassal 
 What Happened to a Philosopher who by Accident Went down a Street Where Prostitutes Lived 
 What Befell a Moor and His Sister Who Pretended That She Was Timid 
 What Happened to a Man Who Tested His Friends 
 What Happened to the Man Whom They Cast out Naked on an Island When They Took away from Him the Kingdom He Ruled 
 What Happened to Saladin and a Lady, the Wife of a Knight Who Was His Vassal 
 What Happened to a Christian King Who Was Very Powerful and Haughty

References

Notes

Bibliography

 Sturm, Harlan

 Wacks, David

External links

The Internet Archive provides free access to the 1868 translation by James York.
JSTOR has the to the 1977 translation by Keller and Keating.
Selections in English and Spanish (pedagogical edition) with introduction, notes, and bibliography in Open Iberia/América (open access teaching anthology)

14th-century books
Spanish literature
1335 books "What Happened to Us" is a song by Australian recording artist Jessica Mauboy, featuring English recording artist Jay Sean. It was written by Sean, Josh Alexander, Billy Steinberg, Jeremy Skaller, Rob Larow, Khaled Rohaim and Israel Cruz. "What Happened to Us" was leaked online in October 2010, and was released on 10 March 2011, as the third single from Mauboy's second studio album, Get 'Em Girls (2010). The song received positive reviews from critics.

A remix of "What Happened to Us" made by production team OFM, was released on 11 April 2011. A different version of the song which features Stan Walker, was released on 29 May 2011. "What Happened to Us" charted on the ARIA Singles Chart at number 14 and was certified platinum by the Australian Recording Industry Association (ARIA). An accompanying music video was directed by Mark Alston, and reminisces on a former relationship between Mauboy and Sean.

Production and release

"What Happened to Us" was written by Josh Alexander, Billy Steinberg, Jeremy Skaller, Rob Larow, Khaled Rohaim, Israel Cruz and Jay Sean. It was produced by Skaller, Cruz, Rohaim and Bobby Bass. The song uses C, D, and B minor chords in the chorus. "What Happened to Us" was sent to contemporary hit radio in Australia on 14 February 2011. The cover art for the song was revealed on 22 February on Mauboy's official Facebook page. A CD release was available for purchase via her official website on 10 March, for one week only. It was released digitally the following day.

Reception
Majhid Heath from ABC Online Indigenous called the song a "Jordin Sparks-esque duet", and wrote that it "has a nice innocence to it that rings true to the experience of losing a first love." Chris Urankar from Nine to Five wrote that it as a "mid-tempo duet ballad" which signifies Mauboy's strength as a global player. On 21 March 2011, "What Happened to Us" debuted at number 30 on the ARIA Singles Chart, and peaked at number 14 the following week. The song was certified platinum by the Australian Recording Industry Association (ARIA), for selling 70,000 copies. "What Happened to Us" spent a total of ten weeks in the ARIA top fifty.

Music video

Background
The music video for the song was shot in the Elizabeth Bay House in Sydney on 26 November 2010. The video was shot during Sean's visit to Australia for the Summerbeatz tour. During an interview with The Daily Telegraph while on the set of the video, Sean said "the song is sick! ... Jessica's voice is amazing and we're shooting [the video] in this ridiculously beautiful mansion overlooking the harbour." The video was directed by Mark Alston, who had previously directed the video for Mauboy's single "Let Me Be Me" (2009). It premiered on YouTube on 10 February 2011.

Synopsis and reception
The video begins showing Mauboy who appears to be sitting on a yellow antique couch in a mansion, wearing a purple dress. As the video progresses, scenes of memories are displayed of Mauboy and her love interest, played by Sean, spending time there previously. It then cuts to the scenes where Sean appears in the main entrance room of the mansion. The final scene shows Mauboy outdoors in a gold dress, surrounded by green grass and trees. She is later joined by Sean who appears in a black suit and a white shirt, and together they sing the chorus of the song to each other. David Lim of Feed Limmy wrote that the video is "easily the best thing our R&B princess has committed to film – ever" and praised the "mansion and wondrous interior décor". He also commended Mauboy for choosing Australian talent to direct the video instead of American directors, which she had used for her previous two music videos. Since its release, the video has received over two million views on Vevo.

Live performances
Mauboy performed "What Happened to Us" live for the first time during her YouTube Live Sessions program on 4 December 2010. She also appeared on Adam Hills in Gordon Street Tonight on 23 February 2011 for an interview and later performed the song. On 15 March 2011, Mauboy performed "What Happened to Us" on Sunrise. She also performed the song with Stan Walker during the Australian leg of Chris Brown's F.A.M.E. Tour in April 2011. Mauboy and Walker later performed "What Happened to Us" on Dancing with the Stars Australia on 29 May 2011. From November 2013 to February 2014, "What Happened to Us" was part of the set list of the To the End of the Earth Tour, Mauboy's second headlining tour of Australia, with Nathaniel Willemse singing Sean's part.

Track listing

Digital download
 "What Happened to Us" featuring Jay Sean – 3:19
 "What Happened to Us" featuring Jay Sean (Sgt Slick Remix) – 6:33
 "What Happened to Us" featuring Jay Sean (Just Witness Remix) – 3:45

CD single
 "What Happened to Us" featuring Jay Sean (Album Version) – 3:19
 "What Happened to Us" featuring Jay Sean (Sgt Slick Remix) – 6:33
 "What Happened to Us" featuring Jay Sean (OFM Remix) – 3:39

Digital download – Remix
 "What Happened to Us" featuring Jay Sean (OFM Remix) – 3:38

Digital download
 "What Happened to Us" featuring Stan Walker – 3:20

Personnel
Songwriting – Josh Alexander, Billy Steinberg, Jeremy Skaller, Rob Larow, Khaled Rohaim, Israel Cruz, Jay Sean
Production – Jeremy Skaller, Bobby Bass
Additional production – Israel Cruz, Khaled Rohaim
Lead vocals – Jessica Mauboy, Jay Sean
Mixing – Phil Tan
Additional mixing – Damien Lewis
Mastering – Tom Coyne 
Source:

Charts

Weekly chart

Year-end chart

Certification

Radio dates and release history

References

2010 songs
2011 singles
Jessica Mauboy songs
Jay Sean songs
Songs written by Billy Steinberg
Songs written by Jay Sean
Songs written by Josh Alexander
Songs written by Israel Cruz
Vocal duets
Sony Music Australia singles
Songs written by Khaled Rohaim