Background and career
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 subsequently 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.
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 often described as "TikTok's biggest star."
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. Her mother is Cajun and is from Louisiana. 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.
How Charli D'Amelio makes money
The venture also announced a $6 million seed round which included Fanatics CEO Michael Rubin, entrepreneur Richard Rosenblatt, Apple Senior Vice President of Services Eddy Cue, and Lionsgate CEO Jon Feltheimer as investors. In August 2023, D'Amelio Brands received $5 million in funding via a strategic investment by VC firm Fifth Growth Fund, to expand to the food and beverage sector, on the company's valuation of $100 million, at the time. The $25 million fund predominantly invests in women and minority-led startups across various sectors, in early or later stages.
