Billie Paul Piper (born Lianne Paul Piper on 22 September 1982) is an English singer and actress.

She began her career as a pop singer when she was a teenager but is now best known for portraying Rose Tyler, companion to the Doctor in the television series Doctor Who from 2005 to 2006, a role she reprised in 2008. In 2007, Broadcast magazine listed Piper at #6 in its "Hot 100" list of influential on-screen performers, the top woman on the list. She has also portrayed the prostitute Belle de Jour in Secret Diary of a Call Girl.

Education

Piper was educated at the independent fee-paying Sylvia Young Theatre School in Marylebone, London, where she met Lee Ryan, Tom Fletcher of band McFly, Matt Willis (then known as Matt Jay) of former band Busted, Jodi Albert, and Amy Winehouse.

1998-2003: Honey To The B and Walk of Life

Piper's first break in the entertainment world came as a teenager, when she was selected to appear on the Saturday morning children's television show Scratchy and Co. Piper later landed a role in a television commercial promoting the pop magazine Smash Hits. Piper was offered a record deal at the age of fifteen, and in 1998 became the youngest artist ever to debut at number one in the UK singles chart with "Because We Want To", released under the stage mononym "Billie". Her follow-up single "Girlfriend" also debuted at number one and her first album, Honey to the B (released immediately afterwards) debuted at Number 14 in the UK album charts. She released two further singles off the album, "She Wants You" and "Honey to the Bee"; both songs debuted at Number 3.

Piper then took a year off to record her second album. She decided to release further records under her full name, Billie Piper. She returned to the Singles Chart in May 2000 with a new, sexier sound. She hit the Number 1 spot with "Day & Night". She waited until the following September to release "Something Deep Inside", which hit #4, but her success wasn't to continue. In October 2000, Piper released her second album, Walk of Life, which reached Number 14 in the UK Album Chart. The song "Walk of Life", the final single off this album, was released in December 2000 and reached Number 25 in the UK Singles Chart.

In 1999, Piper was nominated for two BRIT Awards and was named Best Female Star at the Smash Hits Poll Winners' party, although at the latter ceremony she was reduced to tears after being viciously booed by jealous fans of Ritchie Neville, member of boyband Five, whom she was dating at the time.

On 15 January 2007, BBC Radio 1 DJ Chris Moyles started a campaign to get "Honey to the Bee" back into the Top 100 on download sales as a way of testing out new chart rules that favour download sales. The campaign was highly successful, with "Honey to the Bee" re-entering the official UK singles chart at #17, eight years after it was first released.