Bruno Mars Trivia
0Loading crowd target
0Loading crowd target
7correct to beat the crowd
68 free Bruno Mars trivia questions with answers — music quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
61 free Bruno Mars trivia questions with answers. Bruno Mars went from a four-year-old Elvis impersonator in Waikiki to one of the best-selling artists alive, and this quiz follows the whole road. Fifty questions cover his Honolulu childhood and family band, the songwriting years with the Smeezingtons, Doo-Wops & Hooligans, Unorthodox Jukebox and 24K Magic, the two Super Bowl halftime shows, Silk Sonic with Anderson .Paak, the duets with Lady Gaga and Rosé, and the chart and Grammy records he keeps breaking. The easy questions ask about his birth name and his best-known collaborators; the hard ones want the wrestler behind his nickname, the film he appeared in at six, the backlot where a famous video was shot and the band that ended up with a co-writing credit on his biggest hit. Good for a music trivia night, a fan test or a long car ride. Every answer was checked against Wikipedia's articles on Mars, his albums and his singles, and each question carries the sentence that backs it up.
30 of 68 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01What is Bruno Mars's birth name?
Peter Gene Hernandez
Peter Gene Hernandez has answered to Bruno since he was two, and says label people who heard his surname urged him to make Latin music.
Q 02In which city was Bruno Mars born?
Honolulu
Honolulu was home until he left for Los Angeles after high school; after his parents' divorce he lived for a time with his father and brother in a closed-down bird park.
Q 03Bruno Mars's father nicknamed him Bruno as a toddler after a star of which sport?
Pro wrestling
Pro wrestling: his dad thought the chunky toddler looked like Bruno Sammartino, and the nickname stuck so well that he first planned to perform as plain Bruno.
Q 04Bruno Mars's 2011 single "It Will Rain" was the lead single from the soundtrack to which film series?
Twilight
Twilight: the song was half written when he watched an early cut of Breaking Dawn – Part 1, finished it with the characters in mind, and it plays over the end credits.
Q 05Bruno Mars's mother came to the United States from which country?
The Philippines
The Philippines: his mother Bernadette, a hula dancer, met his father, a Latin percussionist from Brooklyn, when both were working in a Polynesian revue.
Q 06Which family doo-wop revue did Bruno Mars join as a four-year-old Elvis impersonator?
The Love Notes
The Love Notes played doo-wop and other 1950s hits, and the four-year-old's Elvis act quickly made him one of the stars of the family show.
Q 07At age six, Bruno Mars was a guest of which late-night TV host?
Arsenio Hall
Arsenio Hall had him on by the time he was six, already a stage veteran: at five he wet himself mid-song, his parents wondered if they were pushing too hard, and he never wavered.
Q 08As a small child, Bruno Mars had a cameo as a tiny Elvis impersonator in which film?
Honeymoon in Vegas
Honeymoon in Vegas, a 1992 Nicolas Cage comedy, gave Little Elvis a moment on screen in a film whose finale has a whole team of skydiving Elvis impersonators.
Q 09Bruno Mars performed at halftime of which 1990 college football game, played in his home state?
Aloha Bowl
Aloha Bowl: on Christmas Day 1990 the five-year-old sang a Christmas song at halftime on national television, 23 years before he headlined the Super Bowl's.
Q 10Bruno Mars sold his song "Lost" to which revived boy band?
Menudo
Menudo's new line-up got the song, and the sale kept Mars and co-writer Philip Lawrence afloat long enough to decide they would write and produce hits for other artists.
Q 11Which record label first signed Bruno Mars, in 2004, only to drop him less than a year later?
Motown Records
Motown Records had no idea what to do with him, and once the deal collapsed he realised he would have to start writing songs, first of all for other artists.
Q 12Bruno Mars, Philip Lawrence and Ari Levine wrote and produced hits for other artists as which team?
The Smeezingtons
The Smeezingtons, Mars says, grew out of studio slang: a sure hit was "a smash", then "a smeeze", then "a Smeezington", and the joke became the team's name.
Q 13Bruno Mars first topped the Hot 100 as featured singer on 'Nothin' on You' by which rapper?
B.o.B
Q 21Which song won Bruno Mars his first Grammy, for Best Male Pop Vocal Performance in 2011?
Just the Way You Are
Just the Way You Are took him months to write, he said, because he overthinks his own songs while those he writes for other singers come quickly.
Q 22Which second single from Doo-Wops & Hooligans topped both the Billboard Hot 100 and the UK chart?
Grenade
Grenade began as an uptempo, surf-style track; Mars slowed it down and stripped it back just before a key live show, and it became the last song added to the album.
Q 23Which Doo-Wops & Hooligans track charted higher in the US as a Glee cover than as Mars's original?
Marry You
B.o.B's single was the first song on which Mars heard himself on the radio, and it made the hook singer a star before he had released an album of his own.
Q 14"Billionaire", a 2010 hit with a Bruno Mars hook, was credited to which rapper?
Travie McCoy
Travie McCoy got a hook Mars dreamed up while broke in London, where he and Ari Levine had to live for 11 days on a tiny per diem.
Q 15Bruno Mars and Philip Lawrence helped write "Right Round", a 2009 chart-topper for which rapper?
Flo Rida
Flo Rida's number one reworks a Dead or Alive hit; Mars says he and Lawrence came up with their part in two minutes, and it gave them a first taste of what a hit could do.
Q 16Bruno Mars's production trio co-wrote the 2010 hit "Forget You", a UK number one for which singer?
CeeLo Green
CeeLo Green and Mars came up with the song in a single day, which Mars contrasted with the months he spent on his own first solo hit.
Q 17Which Adele album earned Bruno Mars's production trio a Grammy for Album of the Year in 2017?
25
25 includes "All I Ask", written with Adele in two sessions; Mars wanted to cut the word "lovers" from one line, she refused, and he later admitted she was right.
Q 18Bruno Mars voiced the suave Roberto in which animated sequel?
Rio 2
Rio 2 cast him as Roberto, the heroine Jewel's suave childhood friend, and he added a song of his own, "Welcome Back", to the soundtrack.
Q 19Bruno Mars opened for which band on tour in 2010?
Maroon 5
Maroon 5 took him out as an opener that October, while his own first solo single was sitting at number one.
Q 20Bruno Mars co-headlined the 2011 Hooligans in Wondaland Tour with which singer?
Janelle Monáe
Janelle Monáe and Mars announced it days after sharing a standing ovation at the Grammys, a joint tour to promote the debut album each had released in 2010.
Marry You was never promoted as a US single, yet the album cut sold about two million downloads there, helped along by the Glee cast's version.
Q 24Bruno Mars clowns around with five dancers in monkey masks in the video for which hit?
The Lazy Song
The Lazy Song's video was his own do-over: unhappy with the clip his label had made, Mars asked for a couple of thousand dollars, bought the masks and shot a single-take replacement.
Q 25Critics compared "Locked Out of Heaven", Bruno Mars's six-week 2012 chart-topper, to the sound of which band?
The Police
The Police comparison was sealed at the 2013 Grammys, where he performed the song alongside their frontman, Sting, and slid into the band's "Walking on the Moon".
Q 26Which ballad was Mars's fifth US chart-topper?
When I Was Your Man
When I Was Your Man was written, he admitted with great reluctance, about his girlfriend at a time when he feared losing her, and he says performing it is just like bleeding.
Q 27Which Grammy did Unorthodox Jukebox win at the 56th ceremony in 2014?
Best Pop Vocal Album
Best Pop Vocal Album went to a record he called his freedom: he wanted to walk into the studio and make hip-hop, R&B, soul or rock as the mood took him.
Q 28"Uptown Funk" is officially credited to which producer, with Bruno Mars as the featured artist?
Mark Ronson
Mark Ronson says the song took seven months to finish, and that he collapsed over lunch one day under the pressure of nailing his guitar part.
Q 29The opening lines of "Uptown Funk" name-check which Hollywood actress?
Michelle Pfeiffer
Michelle Pfeiffer's name came with the first couplet the writers hit on, the moment one of them says convinced them the song had the seed of something exciting.
Q 30Members of which funk group were added as "Uptown Funk" co-writers after similarities with their 1979 song emerged?
The Gap Band
The Gap Band's publisher filed a claim over "Oops Up Side Your Head", and the settlement added its writers to the credits with a reported 17 percent share.