Michelle Davina Hoogendoorn (stage name Michelle Davina) owes her career to the humility and honesty of P!nk. I don’t follow P!nk closely enough to know if she is normally like this. She has a diva-like persona, but she certainly didn’t act like a diva when Glamour showed her Davina’s cover of the P!nk song What About Us while filming P!nk’s reaction.
Davina might have found another path to an international music career – she has a great voice – but given that she was an unknown young Dutch singer based in Holland, the odds on international recognition were against her. In 2016, Hoogendoorn, as she was still known, entered the Dutch version of Idols where she made it to the duet round. In February 2017 she started posting covers to YouTube. Watch P!nk’s reaction in the video below and to watch Davina’s full cover – scroll down to the second video.
On YouTube, Hoogendoorn dropped her surname. Davina’s posts were initially all English songs. Her tenth cover, posted on 21 August 2017, was P!nk’s What About Us, as embedded above. Cherry Brandy comments on YouTube: “As a legit P!nk fan I have to say you did something incredible to this song. When I wanna hear this song I play your version. You slowed it down & threw a world of emotion into it. Perfection!” Dantesos recently commented “Five years later & it still feels gut-wrenching and beautiful.”
Canid Consulting makes a good point: “How many absolutely incredible voices like Davina’s are out there, shining in the darkness of anonymity?” This observation is especially pertinent in light of the unexpected good fortune experienced by Michelle Davina. Less than two months after Davina posted What About Us, Glamour uploaded a clip of P!nk reacting to Davina’s cover. If P!nk had been iffy about Davina’s cover, or if Glamour had not noticed it in the 1st place, the clip would not be online.
The above video was also posted by Glamour. It shows the first time that Michelle Davina watched P!nk’s reaction video, as well as later comments by Davina. Whatever your taste in music, whether you like P!nk, or Davina, or not, if that doesn’t touch you, you have a heart of stone. In the video, Davina recalls that after Glamour posted the P!nk reaction video, she was immediately asked to appear on Dutch TV. She became a regular on programs including RTL Late Night and De Wereld Draait Door.
In 2018, Davina featured on the Dutch reality show Beste Zangers, where she interpreted the Dutch-language song Duurt te Lang by Glen Faria, a rapper also known as MC Fit. Davina’s cover reached the top of Dutch charts and was certified gold. In 2019, Michelle Davina opened for P!nk when she performed in The Hague on the Beautiful Trauma Tour. In September 2021, Davina sang the Dutch national anthem before the start of the first Formula 1 race in The Netherlands since 1985. When Max Verstappen won, she again sang the anthem during the podium ceremony.
As the pandemic receded, Davina performed further afield. On 9 February 2023 she played a concert in LA, and she’s been touring Europe. Meanwhile she’s released singles and an album, My Own World. In June 2023, Michelle Davina supported Maroon5 for their stadium shows in Lisbon and Berlin.
What About Us has 22M YouTube views and Michelle Davina’s channel has 1.56M subscribers. Here is her most recent single, Heartbeat (March 2023), which she wrote with her boyfriend and producer, Sebastiaan Brouwer:
If you would like to see more from Michelle Davina, you can subscribe to her YouTube channel or follow her on Facebook or Instagram.