Bio

“I know you’ll like it. You’ll want to try it — something that you can’t forget.”

So sings PAU on “Ain’t Seen Nothing Yet.” She wrote it. She performs it with a playful passion that cannot — will not — be denied.

Beautiful, electrifying and one hundred percent in charge of her own schemes and dreams, this bilingual dynamo won legions of fans as a star of Team Christina on Season 3 of The Voice. She was just 16 then. Today, at 21, she’s still young but also wiser, more focused …

 More irresistible.

Check out her channel on YouTube. Sassy, sexy, fetching and funny, whether channeling Tom Cruise’s Risky Business on a teasing cover of “24K Magic” or commanding the stage with an unadorned rendition of her original tune “Melting Winter,” with 33 million views across YouTube, it’s undeniable that she is a star on the rise.

But then, that’s been her plan for years.

“I think I’ve known what I wanted to be from the moment I was born,” she says. “My parents loved to throw these massive parties back home in Texas. I would be the entertainment at 3 years old! I would get tips too, so by the time I was 5 I started charging. I was like, ‘OK, guys, this is my rate. Talk to my parents if you want to negotiate.”

PAU laughs at the idea of this little girl with eyes already set on building a career. But she was serious too. Even then she was listening to and learning from the opera recordings her parents enjoyed. She’d study Andrea Boccelli’s phrasing and sing back what she heard. Later she did the same with Mariah Carey, Britney Spears and Christina Aguilera.

Then, at age 12, PAU took her biggest step forward. “I decided to move to Los Angeles to pursue the dream,” she says. “My mother packed our bags and went with me. My dad, the most incredibly supportive man I know, stayed in Texas and continued to work. I cannot thank them enough for what they did. I am eternally grateful to them.”

Without any contacts in L.A., PAU and her mother began knocking on industry doors. After a year, they decided it would be better for PAU, whose English was stronger than her mother’s, to take meetings alone. At age 13, then, she been charting her own course through boardrooms and setting up her own deals.

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It was YouTube that put PAU on the map as an exciting new talent. Soon she was drawing thousands of visitors, among them a representative of The Voice, which led to the popular show contacting her and inviting her to take part in its next season.

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To this day, PAU insists she can’t remember her performances on The Voice because she was so fully immersed in the moment. But she recalls everything else, from the early morning and late-night hours she spent in the gym, running treadmill while singing at full power to boost her heart rate to what it would be onstage, to one unforgettable moment with her mentor Christina Aguilera.

“We were at the piano and I was singing something for her. Then she stopped me and said, ‘What if you did something like this?’ She sang and I was like, ‘What? Did Christina Aguilera, with the voice of an angel, just give me instruction?!”

The Voice gave PAU huge visibility throughout America. Again handling her own business affairs, she set up a deal to sing on a bilingual commercial campaign for Target. She began lining up acting engagements on television and in film, including the lead role in an upcoming full-length feature, Tell Me I Love You. Mexican pop music sensations Reik recorded her “Spanglish’ for their Grammy-nominated, Platinum-selling 2016 album Des/Amor. She was anointed “beauty guru” for Covergirl Cosmetics in English and Spanish markets — and wrote a song for them as well.

Songwriting, in fact, has been central to her most recent efforts. “Melting Winter” was picked up by the Korean superstar group Girls’ Generation. Another one of Paulina’s tunes, “Homebody,” has been tapped as her debut single, despite its surprisingly non-glamorous lyric. Why?

“Because honesty is the biggest thing for me,” she answers. “A lot of artists put on this glamorous face, but I just want to be real. I don’t want to go out and do drugs. Sometimes I just want to stay home, order a pizza and watch Netflix. So of course I’m going to write about that!”

It’s no surprise that PAU’s goals are clear. She wants to do maybe three or four films each year. She hopes to release an EP within the next year and also write for and guest on other artists’ projects. “And,” she concludes, with a knowing smile, “I believe that within the next five years I’ll get my first Grammy.”

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Check her out. You’ll become a believer too.