Naomi Watanabe

Watanabe was born in Taipei to a Japanese father and a Taiwanese mother. The family moved to Japan shortly after her birth and she was raised in Ibaraki. She is an only child. Her parents divorced when she was very young. During that time, Watanabe recalls what living in poverty was like, especially when she was five or six years old; her mother struggled to find stable work because she was a foreigner and could barely understand the Japanese language. She was raised in Ibaraki until her mother remarried when Watanabe was eight years old. She was raised in Ibaraki until her mother remarried when Watanabe was eight years old. She revealed that her mother's new husband was only interested in her mother and did not care much about her, so she often felt lonely as a child.

Watanabe does impersonations of popular artists in Japanese culture, among which her imitation of Beyoncé singing "Dreamgirls" and "Crazy in Love" became popular. She has launched her own fashion line called Punyus (loosely translated to "chubby" in English), and played the role of Mabel in the musical Fame and Tracy Turnblad in the musical Hairspray. Watanabe made her musical debut in 2017, as a featured artist on Japanese-American singer Ai's single "Kira Kira". The song served as the opening theme song for the Japanese drama Kanna-san!, with Watanabe as the lead actress. "Kira Kira" was nominated for the Grand Prix Award at the 59th Japan Record Awards. In 2022, she appeared as a featured artist on a Japanese remix of Doja Cat's 2021 single "Kiss Me More". In 2025, Watanabe and the comic duo Chocolate Planet formed N-choco. They released their debut single "Elusive" with M-Flo.

Watanabe appeared as a guest in the 2013 anime movie Crayon Shin-chan: Very Tasty! B-class Gourmet Survival!!. In 2016, she voiced the character of Ashima in the Japanese language dub of the Thomas & Friends film The Great Race. In 2019, she was featured in Queer Eye: We're in Japan!, Season 1, Episode 3, "The Ideal Woman". She has appeared in Us Weekly magazine.

In March 2021, she announced she would move from Japan to the United States. Watanabe relocated to New York City, describing it as a "major rebirth".