The Apprentice

In many ways, Esmée Denters is your typical 20-year-old girl—she loves to shop, rock out to Beyoncé, and see anything with Wentworth Miller in it—but what's different about Esmée is that she has Justin Timberlake on speed dial. "He's like a mentor to me," Esmée says from her home in the Netherlands, where she lives with her mom. "He even says he's like my big brother, and I do look up to him like that." See, Esmée just happens to be the first artist JT signed to his new Interscope Records label, Tennman. After she posted clips of herself singing hits like TLC's "Waterfalls" and Natasha Bedingfield's "Unwritten" on YouTube, JT invited her to meet him backstage in Chicago. "It was so surreal. I sang a Prince song and heard Justin say he liked it, but I had no idea what would happen," she recalls. A month later Esmée was signing a record deal (she saved the pen!) and recounting her story on Oprah. This summer, she releases her self-titled debut, some of which she co-wrote with JT. "A few songs are more personal, and there are club songs for going out with your girls and having fun," she says, giggling. "Because you don't want to be sad all the time."