Charli D'Amelio

Charli D'Amelio - Quick Facts

Profile Overview of Charli D'Amelio

Charli Grace D'Amelio ( də-MIL-ee-oh; born May 1, 2004) is an American social media personality and dancer. She was a competitive dancer for over a decade before she came to prominence in late 2019, when she began posting dance videos on the video-sharing platform TikTok and joined The Hype House that same year. D'Amelio quickly amassed a large following and later became the most-followed creator on the platform from March 2020 to June 2022. With over 158 million followers, she is the second most-followed person on TikTok as of 2026.

This profile of Charli D'Amelio covers Early Life and Family Background, 2019–2021: rise to prominence on TikTok, 2022–present: reality series and other projects, Public Image and Media and Controversies.

D'Amelio made her feature film debut with a voice role in the 2020 animated film StarDog and TurboCat. She starred in the Hulu reality series The D'Amelio Show (2021–2023) with her family and co-led the Snap Original reality show Charli vs. Dixie (2021–2022), with her sister. In 2022, D'Amelio won the thirty-first season of the dance competition series Dancing with the Stars alongside Mark Ballas. She made her Broadway debut in the ensemble of & Juliet in October 2024.

Her other endeavours include two books, a podcast, a nail polish collection, a mattress, a makeup line, a clothing line, and a multi-product company. D'Amelio was the highest-earning TikTok female personality in 2019 and the highest-earning personality on the app in 2022, according to Forbes, and is described as "TikTok's biggest star."

Early Life and Family Background of Charli D'Amelio

Charli Grace D'Amelio was born in Norwalk, Connecticut, on May 1, 2004, the daughter of photographer and former model Heidi D'Amelio and business owner and former Republican Connecticut Senate candidate Marc D'Amelio. She has an older sister, Dixie, who is also a social media personality.

She began dancing at the age of three, and was a competitive dancer for over 10 years prior to starting her TikTok career in 2019.

She formerly attended the private King School in Stamford, Connecticut, but began attending school virtually following her social media popularity.

2019–2021: rise to prominence on TikTok of Charli D'Amelio

D'Amelio first began posting on TikTok in May 2019 with a lip syncing video alongside her friend. Her first video to gain traction, a side-by-side video (known on the platform as a "duet") with user Move With Joy, was posted in July 2019. D'Amelio has expressed confusion regarding her rise to popularity, telling Variety, "I consider myself a normal teenager that a lot of people watch, for some reason. It doesn't make sense in my head, but I'm working on understanding it." Since then, her content has mainly consisted of videos dancing to trending songs on the platform. In October 2019, she gained further exposure for her videos performing a dance called the "Renegade" to the K Camp song "Lottery". She was later credited with popularizing the dance on social media, while also being incorrectly credited with creating the dance, and was referred to as the "CEO of Renegade" by TikTok users. Following a New York Times profile of dancer Jalaiah Harmon revealing her as the original creator of the dance, D'Amelio received online backlash for not crediting Harmon, and began regularly crediting the creators of the dances she performed. She joined the collaborative TikTok content house The Hype House in November 2019 alongside her sister, Dixie.

In late 2019, former Sony Music executive Barbara Jones signed D'Amelio to her management company, Outshine Talent, and in January 2020, she signed with United Talent Agency along with the rest of her family. Bebe Rexha invited D'Amelio to perform alongside her during her opening performance for the Jonas Brothers in November 2019. That same month, she began posting on her YouTube vlog channel.

In February 2020, D'Amelio appeared in a Super Bowl commercial for Sabra hummus along with other celebrities. In March 2020, she and her sister partnered with UNICEF for an anti-bullying campaign and made an appearance in the Nickelodeon television special #KidsTogether: The Nickelodeon Town Hall, hosted by Kristen Bell. That same month, she partnered with Procter & Gamble to create the #DistanceDance challenge campaign on TikTok with the goal of encouraging social distancing during the COVID-19 pandemic, which garnered praise from Ohio Governor Mike DeWine. For her involvement in the campaign, she was nominated for a Streamy Award for Social Good Campaign. She also became the most-followed TikTok user, displacing American social media personality Loren Gray, and the first TikTok user to earn 50 million followers. D'Amelio appeared in the ABC television special The Disney Family Singalong during the performance of "We're All In This Together" from High School Musical in April 2020.

In May 2020, D'Amelio and her sister announced a podcast deal with Ramble Podcast Network, and both were included in the celebrity lineup for the television special Graduate Together: America Honors the High School Class of 2020, hosted by LeBron James. Also that month, she left the Hype House. D'Amelio starred as Tinker in the June 2020 United States release of the 2019 animated children's film StarDog and TurboCat, marking her first role in a feature film. That same month, she and her sister partnered with Morphe Cosmetics to launch Morphe 2, a makeup line. Charli and Dixie also launched a nail polish collection called Coastal Craze with Orosa Beauty in August 2020.

Later that month, D'Amelio announced her debut book, titled Essentially Charli: The Ultimate Guide to Keeping It Real, which was released on December 1, 2020. The book was published by Abrams Books. It covered topics of identity, cyberbullying, social media, and body image as well as D'Amelio's childhood and family life. The book became a New York Times bestseller.

Dunkin' Donuts offered a limited-time drink on their menu dedicated to D'Amelio and based on her "go-to" order called "The Charli" in September 2020. D'Amelio and her sister also designed limited-edition fleece sweatshirts for Hollister, released in September 2020. She joined Triller, a rival platform to TikTok, later that month, in the midst of a potential US ban on TikTok. She also made an appearance in Jennifer Lopez and Maluma's music video for their singles "Pa' Ti + Lonely". D'Amelio earned a 2021 Guinness World Record for having the most TikTok followers that same month. D'Amelio starred in the music video for the Bebe Rexha single, "Baby I'm Jealous", in October 2020. She became the face of teen-oriented banking services company, Step. Later that month, she was nominated for three awards, including Creator of the Year, at the 10th Streamy Awards.

Source: adapted from Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charli_D%27Amelio), text available under CC BY-SA 4.0.