Tessa Violet is an American singer-songwriter, social media personality, actress, music video director, and former child model who started vlogging on YouTube for a school project and gained popularity for her vlogs, song covers and other content. She went on to release three studio albums: Maybe Trapped Mostly Troubled, Bad Ideas, and MY GOD! and has acted in film and web-series.
Early Life
Tessa Violet attended Ashland High School, from where she graduated as a member of the National Honor Society on June 6, 2008. In school, she performed in theatre productions.
YouTube Career
Tessa Violet had started vlogging daily on YouTube in 2007 as part of her senior project in high school. She had created her YouTube channel, Meekakitty, back on July 16, 2006. She had been working as a child model for a long time and vlogged about working as a fashion model in Hong Kong and Thailand. After she relocated to New York with her mother in 2008, she started vlogging as a hobby. The next year, she won $100,000 in a YouTube competition for receiving the most comments on her video entry.
In 2010, she created the videos Star Trek Girl and Wizard Love – feat. Heyhihello in collaboration with Maker Studios and both went viral. In January 2012, she embarked on a 17-city tour covering North America called The Dial Up Tour with fellow YouTubers like Shawna Howson, Olan Rogers, Alex Carpenter, Mitchell Davis, Jason Munday, and Kyle Sibert.
Entertainment Career
Since joining YouTube, Tessa Violet posted fan-made music videos on her channel. After featuring on fellow YouTuber Nanalew's unofficial 2011 music video for the song Sail by Awolnation, which went viral, she appeared in the music video for Family Force 5's Cray Button ft. Lecrae in 2012. She launched her musical career with her first album, Maybe Trapped Mostly Troubled, on March 18, 2014. On September 16, 2016, she released the lead single Dream from her EP Halloway, which fully released the next month.
The first single, Crush, from her second studio album Bad Ideas, was released on June 15, 2018. The full album, also consisting of singles like Bad Ideas, I Like (the idea of) You, and Games, was released on October 25, 2019. YES MOM, the first single from her third studio album MY GOD!, was released on February 15, 2022. She has since then released singles including Breakdown, Kitchen Song, You Are Not My Friend and My God!, with the full album releasing on July 14, 2023. She released the latest single from the album, Play with Fire, featuring Frances Forever, on August 16.
Apart from various music videos, she had appeared in a few episodes of the web-series The Professionals in 2010-11. She made her screen debut with the romantic comedy film The Matchbreaker in 2016.
Family Life
Tessa Violet Williams’ mother is Lysa Williams. She revealed being engaged to musician Dante Cimadamore in December 2022. She stated that they had been working together for five years before they started dating.
