Monica Denise Brown (née Arnold) is an American singer, songwriter, actress, and entrepreneur. Born and raised in College Park, Georgia, she began performing as a child and became part of a traveling gospel choir at the age of ten. Monica rose to prominence after she signed with Rowdy Records in 1993 and released her debut album Miss Thang two years later. She followed it with a series of successful albums, including the global bestseller The Boy Is Mine (1998) as well as the number-one albums After the Storm (2003), The Makings of Me (2006) and Still Standing (2010). Throughout her career, several of Monica's singles became number-one hits on the pop and R&B record charts, including "Don't Take It Personal (Just One of Dem Days)", "Like This and Like That", "The Boy Is Mine", "The First Night", "Angel of Mine", "So Gone", and "Everything to Me".

Monicas's popularity was further enhanced by her roles in television series such as Living Single, Felicity, and American Dreams, and films including Boys and Girls (2000), Love Song (2000), and Pastor Brown (2009). A contributor to the NBC talent show The Voice, in 2008, she appeared in the Peachtree TV reality show special Monica: The Single which tracked the recording of the song "Still Standing" along with her personal life and resulted in her own highly-rated BET series Monica: Still Standing, containing a similar concept. Separated from rapper Rodney "Rocko" Hill, father of her first two children, Monica married professional basketball player Shannon Brown in November 2010. Their first child together, a daughter, was born in 2013.

Monica has sold 5.3 million albums in the United States, and she is recognized as one of the most successful urban R&B female vocalists to emerge in the mid to late-1990s. According to Billboard, she is the youngest recording act to ever have two consecutive chart-topping hits on the Billboard Top R&B Singles chart, as well as the first artist to top the US Billboard Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs chart over the span of three consecutive decades (1990s, 2000s, and 2010s). In 2010, Billboard listed Monica at number 24 on its list of the Top 50 R&B and Hip Hop Artists of the past 25 years. A four-time nominee, she won a Grammy Award for Best R&B Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocals for "The Boy Is Mine" at the 41st awards ceremony and has been the recipient of one Billboard Music Award, one BET Award, and two BMI Pop Awards.

Monica was born in College Park, Georgia on October 24, 1980. She is the only daughter of Marilyn Best, a former church singer of African American descent, M.C. "Billy" Arnold Jr., a Delta Air Lines customer service representativ of African American, Irish, and Native American descent. She has a younger brother, Montez (born in 1983), and a half brother, Jermond Grant, on her father's side. She also has two maternal half-brothers, Tron and Cypress. Monica is a cousin of record producer Polow da Don, and relative-in-law to rapper Ludacris through her mother's second marriage to Reverend Edward Best, a Methodist minister.

At the age of 2, Monica followed in her mother's footsteps with regular performances at the Jones Hill Chapel United Methodist Church in Marilyn's hometown Newnan, Georgia. While growing up in the modest circumstances of a single-parent home after her parents' 1984 separation and 1987 divorce, Monica continued training herself in singing and became a frequent talent-show contestant, winning over 20 local singing competitions throughout her early teenage years. When she was 10 years old, she became the youngest member of "Charles Thompson and the Majestics", a traveling 12-piece gospel choir. She also attended North Clayton High School along with rapper 2 Chainz.

Monica's career came to a slow down in 1999 due to relationship problems with her ex-boyfriend Jarvis Weems. In July 2000, the couple were together at the gravesite of Weems's brother, who had died in an automobile accident at age 25 in 1998, when Weems, without warning, put a gun to his head and committed suicide. "Afterward, I felt, 'What else could I have done?' You replay that situation over and over and you switch it around: Maybe if I had said this, or if I would have done that,'" she said in an interview with The Cincinnati Enquirer the following year. "It's just something that it's never possible for me to go back and change."

Monica met rapper Rodney "Rocko" Hill, a former SWA officer and real estate manager, shortly after Weems's suicide, a time which she described as her "weakest." While the couple soon began dating in fall of the same year, they ended their relationship in 2004. A few months later, Monica and Hill revived their relationship and she became pregnant with their first child. On May 21, 2005, she gave birth to their first son Rocko. Monica and Hill became engaged once again on Christmas Eve 2007, just a few days prior to the birth of their second child on January 8, 2008. The son was named Romelo Montez Hill, named after Monica's younger brother. The pair parted ways in early 2010.

In June 2010, Monica met NBA player Shannon Brown when looking for someone to play the love interest in her video for "Love All Over Me". Monica later announced her engagement to Brown via her Twitter account, posting a photo of a rose-cut diamond ring. On November 22, 2010, the couple married in a secret ceremony at their Los Angeles home. The marriage, however, did not become a matter of public record until January 21, 2011, when Brown told the Hip-Hop Non-Stop TV-Show. They had a second wedding ceremony for family and friends in July 2011. On September 3, 2013, Monica gave birth to her third child, Laiyah Shannon.

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