Birth name : Clayton Holmes Grissom
Born: November 30, 1978
United States Raleigh, North Carolina
Genre(s) : Pop, Adult contemporary
Years active : 2003—present
Label(s) : RCA
Website : www.clayaiken.com

Clay Aiken (born Clayton Holmes Grissom on November 30, 1978) is an American pop singer who rose to fame on the second season of the television program American Idol in 2003. RCA Records offered him a recording contract and his debut album Measure of a Man was released in October 2003. Based on album sales, he has become the most successful second-place finisher in that show's history.
Clay Aiken was born and raised in Raleigh, North Carolina. As a young boy, Aiken sang in the Raleigh Boychoir and as a young adult with a local band, Just By Chance. He attended Raleigh's Leesville Road High School before enrolling at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. Although his American Idol activities temporarily delayed his academic pursuits, Aiken graduated with a bachelor's degree in special education in December of 2003. He found his interest in special education while directing YMCA children's camps as a teenager; at age 19 he served as a substitute teacher for a classroom of students with autism at Brentwood Elementary School. While attending college in Charlotte he took a part-time job as an assistant to a boy with autism, and it was this child's mother, Diane Bubel, who urged him to audition for American Idol.

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