At age 11, Battaglia independently released "A Thousand Stars", an album that was produced by her mother, Donna. A portion of the proceeds from "A Thousand Stars" went to help a housing project for the less fortunate. Battaglia began looking for a recording contract when she was eleven years old, due to the success of her independent album. She caught attention of record producer Joel Diamond after Battaglia's mother called and asked Diamond to audition her daughter. Diamond put up his own money to record her. After being turned down by over 20 record labels with his demo, "Paradise", for her, it was Mike Curb who called Diamond months after receiving the recording and told him that he wanted to sign Battaglia to Curb Records.