D’Amelios talk family, fame and new Hulu show
Charli D’Amelio first started making videos on TikTok in May 2019; her rendition of the “Renegade” dance created by Jalaiah Harmon went viral. Data website Statista reports that as of September 2021, Charli was the “most followed content creator” on the video app with 123.5 million followers.
Charli’s first viral TikTok was a duet video with a user named “move_with_joy” that earned her more than 5 million followers in five months, according to Insider.
Charli’s 20-year-old sister Dixie is also “TikTok famous,” recording 55 million followers on the app. She is also trying to establish a music career, recording singles like “One Whole Day” with Wiz Khalifa.
In a 2020 interview with The Guardian, Dixie explained she noticed TikTok in 2018, though she said “people at school made fun of TikTok” then. When Charli — who is also a competitive dancer — started posting videos on the app, Dixie said she thought her sister would embarrass herself.
On a Sept. 15, 2021 episode of The Ellen Show, Dixie told Ellen DeGeneres that Charli ultimately convinced her to start making videos — and that Charli was likely the one who made TikTok popular at their school.
In 2019, Charli and Dixie went on to join other TikTok stars at The Hype House, a “collab” house with other viral TikTok stars, but they moved out in 2020. In October 2020, Charli and the D’Amelio family signed with UTA talent agency, according to the LA Times.
The family later relocated to Los Angeles from Norwalk. And Charli told Hearst Connecticut that while it was a “big change” to move West, it was still “very fun.”
“We got to meet a lot of new people and do a lot of really interesting things,” she said.
Even with their new life in Los Angeles, there are still some things the D’Amelio family misses about life in Connecticut. For Charli, that includes her home dance studio as well as missing “getting to see [her] friends so often.” While mother Heidi D’Amelio said she misses the changing seasons, Marc, Charli and Dixie called out a different feature of the Nutmeg State: the food.
“Obviously I’ve loved the food in Norwalk and Connecticut my entire life, but I didn’t realize how much I would miss it until I moved to California,” Dixie said. “It hits different on the East Coast.”
With nearly 180 million TikTok followers combined, Charli and Dixie now have a clothing line with Hollister called Social Tourist and a makeup collaboration with Morphe cosmetics. Charli also has her own Dunkin’ beverage (the “Charli Cold Foam”) and a collaboration with Pura Vida Jewelry and she has been named on top lists by both Forbes and TIME Magazine.
While Charli told Hearst Connecticut that most of her life has been able to stay the same since she became famous, she notes one major change.
“I think the biggest difference is people caring more about what I am doing on a day-to-day basis,” she said.
With all this newfound attention, Heidi told Hearst Connecticut that for her, filming the family’s new Hulu show was a positive experience overall, though “nothing like [she] thought it would be.”
“...Everyone on the team was amazing at what they do as well as being awesome human beings — we miss them so much.” she said. “The reaction [to the show] has been mostly surprised — most people say they didn’t realize how emotional it was going to be and how they related to it so much.”
Depicting their lives on and off TikTok, Charli and Dixie told Ellen Degeneres in a Sept. 15 episode of “The Ellen Show” that their Hulu series also highlights their mental health journeys as they navigate stardom.
“The approach we kind of took when filming was, ‘Let’s show our lives, we don’t show what we do when the cameras are put down,’” Dixie told Ellen. “...Showing our mental health journeys, I thought, was really important to both of us, and how far we’ve come since filming.”
Dixie told Hearst Connecticut that the biggest drawback of her and her family’s newfound fame will “always be hate comments and the feeling of being picked apart by people that don’t know you.”
“We’ve definitely developed tougher skin than when we first started, but I think that will always be the hardest part,” she said.
According to Charli, the hardest part of her fame is “feeling like you need to be perfect all the time.”
But both sisters added that there are elements of their celebrity status that they appreciate.
For Charli, it’s “getting to experience fun things and make a positive impact in someone’s life,” she told Hearst Connecticut.
Dixie agreed, noting that “the support of [their] fans and the amazing opportunities” they experience are highlights of their new public lives.
“I got to go to the Met Gala this year, which I never thought was possible, work with my favorite brands and create music as my job which I’m so grateful for,” Dixie told Hearst Connecticut. “Knowing that I can hop online and talk to people who support me is a crazy feeling because you really do feel that support from all over the globe.”
When asked what they’d want the public to know about their family, Marc and Heidi told Hearst Connecticut that they are fully aware of their pop culture prominence.
“We understand how lucky we are and do not take our newfound notoriety and responsibility lightly,” Marc said in an email.
“MY FAMILY HAS ALWAYS BEEN SUPER CLOSE AND WE LIVED A PRETTY NORMAL LIFE. ALL OF THIS HAPPENED SO QUICKLY AND I’M GRATEFUL THAT WE’VE HAD EACH OTHER THROUGHOUT THE WHOLE PROCESS.”
— DIXIE