A Look At Hailee Bailey's Career In Hollywood
Quick Links
At just twenty-three years old, Halle Bailey has climbed her way up the ladder of success in spectacular fashion, but there are certain variables about her life that may have contributed to her early rise to stardom. On May 26th, 2023, the live-action version of Disney's animated movie, The Little Mermaid, was released in the United States, where she starred in one of her grandest and most controversial roles as the movie's main character, Ariel. But her ascent to such an enormous platform didn't come over night, as Bailey began her acting career at the age of three years old. And in addition to being an actress, Bailey is also a singer and songwriter, together with her sister Chloe Bailey. Her musical talent was even recognized by the Queen of Pop and R&B, Beyoncé Knowles. Let's take a close look at Halle Bailey's exciting Hollywood career.
Destined For Stardom
Born on March 27, 2000, Halle Bailey was raised in Mableton, Georgia and is the youngest girl of her parents. Her older siblings include Ski Bailey and Chloe Bailey, with whom she shares her musical stardom, as well as a younger brother named Branson Bailey. Her father and co-manager, Doug Bailey, made it his mission to invest in his children and instilled in them the importance of being self-taught in the areas of song-writing and playing instruments. She even learned to play musical instrumentals by watching tutorials videos on YouTube.
And, like the music icon Justin Bieber, Halle and Chloe took advantage of YouTube by launching their own channel at the ages of eleven and thirteen respectively, covering songs such as Beyoncé's Best Thing I Never Had and Pretty Hurts, the latter of which went viral. The two went on to perform and upload more song covers as Chloe x Halle onto their channel and by April 2012, they made their talk show debut on the Ellen DeGeneres Show. The sky was the limit from there on.
But back up a couple years before her music career took off and we'll find that the Grammy-nominated singer was no stranger to the camera. She actually began her professional acting career from the age of three in movies such as Joyful Noise starring rapper/actress Queen Latifah, country singer Dolly Parton, and actress/singer Keke Palmer. According to Celebrity Net Worth, 2006 she appeared in the romantic-comedy-drama Last Holiday, starring rapper LL Cool Jay and Queen Latifah.
Then, in 2007, she guest-starred in the TV series, Tyler Perry's House of Payne. She also had a minor role in the 2012 Disney musical film, Let It Shine, starring Everybody Hates Chris actor Tyler James Williams and Grown-ish Trevor Jackson. While still a teenager, all of Bailey's wildest dreams were coming true as both her music and acting career were intersecting in a unison of divine timing that guaranteed her success.
Unstoppable Success
One year following her debut talk show interview with Ellen DeGeneres, Halle and her sister Chloe won Season 5 of Radio Disney's The Next Big Thing and then made a guest appearance to perform the song Unstoppable on the Disney Channel series, Austin and Ally. Their exposure on the Disney Channel would further get the attention of Queen Bey, and by 2016 Halle and Chloe signed a five-year contract with Parkwood Entertainment, an entertainment company whose founder was Beyoncé. They were even being called "Beyonce's prodigies" because of how closely they studied her style. But in the same year they signed, they were featured in the clip for Beyoncé's song, Freedom, with which she collaborated with Kendrick Lamar on her sixth studio album, Lemonade. Also featured in the clip were actresses Zendaya and Amandla Stenberg.
In 2018, the Bailey sisters released their debut studio album, The Kids Are Alright, under Parkwood Entertainment, which received two Grammy nominations. Around the same time, they released a mixtape titled The Two of Us, which was critically acclaimed and was placed on the Rolling Stone magazine's list for Best R&B albums of 2017. Later that year, they also released a theme song for the sitcom, Grown-ish, created by writer, actor, and comedian Larry Wilmore and Kenya Barris. This would also be the introduction to Halle's recurring appearance on the show as "Sky" in the first season, until she was upgraded to being cast regularly on the series in 2018.
Becoming The Little Mermaid
But simultaneously, as she was being established as an actress, her music career was still on the upward climb, being backed by Beyoncé. In May 2018, Halle and Chloe were announced as the opening act for Jay Z and Beyoncé's On The Run II Tour. It was becoming no secret that Halle was a multi-talented spectacle as she and Chloe were nominated for two Grammy Awards in 2018 - one for Best New Artist and the other for Best Urban Contemporary Album.
After releasing another album titled Ungodly Hour in 2020 which reached #16 on the Billboard 200 Chart, Halle's next big break came in July 2019 when Disney announced that she be playing the lead role of Princess Ariel in The Little Mermaid live-action film remake. The film was heavily delayed because of the COVID-19 pandemic as production could not begin in England and Italy. However, by 2021, the film's production began and The Little Mermaid premiered in Los Angeles in May 2023. Besides Bailey, the film featured rapper Daveed Diggs, actor Javier Bardem, and actress Melissa McCarthy. Against a budget of $250 million, the film grossed $422.1 million at the global box office, doubling what it made with The Little Mermaid 1989 animation version.
Sources: Celebrity Net Worth, Rolling Stone, The New York Times
ncG1vNJzZmivp6x7tbTEq6CcoJWowW%2BvzqZmq6GTnXqxu9aeqZ%2BtnGSubrjOqKJmmaRitaK1y56cZpqRnrmmxdJmmpqqlZq%2FbrXNZp%2BopJyuxLC7w2g%3D