Bruno Mars' 41st Birthday Countdown

Bruno Mars's songs

Bruno Mars Timeline

About Bruno Mars

A Honolulu kid who impersonated Elvis at four, Mars became modern pop's classic showman: Uptown Funk, 24K Magic, the Silk Sonic project with Anderson .Paak, and a trophy shelf with more than a dozen Grammys on it.

Little Elvis, dropped and undaunted

At four years old, Peter Gene Hernandez was performing as a pint-size Elvis impersonator in his family's Honolulu variety show, complete with a cameo in the 1992 film Honeymoon in Vegas. He moved to Los Angeles at 17, signed with Motown, and was dropped within about a year. So he regrouped as a songwriter with his Smeezingtons crew, writing hooks for other artists, until 2010, when 'Just the Way You Are' made Bruno Mars the star he'd been rehearsing to be since preschool.

Fourteen weeks of funk

'Uptown Funk,' his 2014 smash with Mark Ronson, sat at No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 for 14 straight weeks and went on to a Diamond certification. The trophies kept pace: 16 Grammy Awards, including a 2022 night when Silk Sonic's 'Leave the Door Open,' his retro-soul duo with Anderson .Paak, swept both Record and Song of the Year. He headlined the Super Bowl halftime show in 2014 and returned as a guest in 2016.

24K generosity

The gold-chains showman gives quietly and locally. In 2017, Mars announced onstage in Michigan that he was donating $1 million from his 24K Magic Tour stop to the Community Foundation of Greater Flint for families hit by the water crisis. The next year he closed the tour at Honolulu's Aloha Stadium and paid for 24,000 Thanksgiving meals for Hawaii residents through the Salvation Army's Hawaiian and Pacific Islands Division, the number a wink at the album.

Quick facts

• Born October 8, 1985, in Honolulu, Hawaii
• Performed as an Elvis impersonator at age 4 in his family's show
• 'Uptown Funk' topped the Hot 100 for 14 weeks
• Has won 16 Grammy Awards
• Silk Sonic's 'Leave the Door Open' won Record and Song of the Year (2022)
• Performed the Super Bowl halftime show twice

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