Macy Gray

Her real name is Natalie McIntyre. Macy Gray was a friend of her father's who lived nearby. She liked the sound of it, so she used it as a stage name.

Her marriage to the mortgage broker Tracy Hinds ended in 1998, the same year she signed a record deal and started working on her first album. She had three children with Hinds: daughters Aanisah and Tahmel (both born in 1995), and son Cassius (born in 1997). Much of her first album deals with her relationship with Hinds.

Macy studied screenwriting at the University of Southern California. One of her student scripts was about a girl who falls in love with her father.