Rise to Fame
A bedroom dancer with no agenda beyond posting TikTok videos, she was 15 when the platform's recommendation engine essentially chose her as the face of TikTok. A July 2019 duet sent her from 7 followers to 2,000 in an afternoon. The Renegade dance became a hashtag with 2.2 billion views, though she didn't invent it. By late 2020, she was the first creator to crack both 50 million and 100 million followers. A Berkeley AI researcher called her a 'median user,' a safe enough recommendation for every demographic.
In the Spotlight
The DWTS Season 31 win in 2022 drew complaints the moment it happened. She was a trained dancer entering a competition built around watching celebrities learn to dance, and the show's judges couldn't keep their critiques consistent. Her Broadway debut in & Juliet followed, running through September 2025. Forbes ranked her sixth among top creators for 2025 with $23.5 million in earnings. The algorithm that created her still feeds her. Whether the Broadway run signals something longer is the real question.
Side Notes
Her father ran for the Connecticut Senate as a Republican, which few of her 156 million TikTok followers appear to have noticed. She's been public about her eating disorder and body dysmorphia since 2020, tying the origin to a dance teacher who made comments about her figure when she was a child. The platform that made her name made the problem worse. She's said the cruelest online comments targeted her weight. Going to therapy was also content, which is either honest or strategic, possibly both.