Rise to Fame
The cattle show in Waco is where it started. She sang 'The Greatest Love of All' at age 3, her mother took note, and by 10 she'd won a Texas pageant and relocated to LA. The real break came on Party of Five in 1995, where a 9-episode guest arc turned into a full series regular slot because producers refused to let her go. I Know What You Did Last Summer followed in 1997, and the combination of prime-time drama and back-to-back slasher films turned her into one of the defining faces of the late 90s teen moment.
In the Spotlight
Two decades of being famous didn't guarantee this outcome. Ghost Whisperer was a ratings hit but never fully shook the 'she talks to dead people' novelty label. What repositioned her was joining 9-1-1 in 2018 as Maddie Buckley, a 911 dispatcher and domestic abuse survivor. The role gave her something to act into. ABC renewed the show for Season 10 in March 2026, and she's back. The scream queen from 1997 is now one of the more reliable players in network procedural drama, which is a different kind of staying power.
Side Notes
At 12, she had a pop career in Japan, where Love Songs made her a genuine teen idol while the US ignored it. She'd been a backing vocalist on Martika's 1989 number-one 'Toy Soldiers' before that, which tells you something about how long she's been in the machinery. The other detail that sticks: in 2010, while promoting her dating book, she casually popularized the term 'vajazzling' in a press interview, briefly overtaking news cycles. The book hit number one on the New York Times Best Seller list.