Background and career
Elizabeth Shaila Koshy (born March 31, 1996) is an American YouTuber and actress. She has received four Streamy Awards, four Teen Choice Awards, and a Kids' Choice Award.
Koshy began her career on Vine in 2013 before starting a YouTube channel. She made her acting debut as Aday Walker in Tyler Perry's horror comedy film Boo! A Madea Halloween (2016), and went on to star as Violet Adams in the Hulu horror drama series Freakish (2016–2017) and The Explorer in the YouTube Premium mystery series Escape the Night (2017–2019). She was also a correspondent for the MTV television series Total Request Live (2017–2018).
Koshy co-created, produced and starred as the title character in the YouTube Premium comedy series Liza on Demand (2018–2021), which earned her several accolades, and hosted the Nickelodeon game show revival Double Dare (2018–2019), for which she received a Daytime Emmy Award nomination. She starred in the Netflix dance comedy film Work It (2020), and had voice roles in the animated adventure film My Little Pony: A New Generation (2021), the science fiction film Transformers: Rise of the Beasts (2023) and the animated teen comedy film Ruby Gillman, Teenage Kraken (also from 2023).
Koshy was included in the 2019 Forbes 30 Under 30 Hollywood & Entertainment list, as well as the Time 2019 list of the 25 Most Influential People on the Internet and its 100 Next list that same year.
Elizabeth Shaila Koshy was born in Houston, Texas, on March 31, 1996, the daughter of Jean Carol (née Hertzler), an American yoga instructor of German descent, and Jose Koshy, an Indian Malayali petroleum executive from Kerala. She has two older sisters. From kindergarten until fifth grade, she was placed in a dual language educational and cultural program, where she learned to speak Spanish. In 2014, after attending Lamar High School, Koshy enrolled in the University of Houston and began to study business marketing. In 2015, she left college and moved to Los Angeles to pursue a media career.
