With '& Juliet' on Broadway, Charli D'Amelio is living her most normal life yet
For many influencers, fame can be fickle. Easily won, easily lost − ever fleeting in an oversaturated market that craves constant newness.
But Charli D'Amelio wouldn't know about that. The 20-year-old dancer turned TikTok darling became a social media sensation during the COVID-19 pandemic, briefly boasting the most followers on the platform.
Her formal dance training made her a pro at viral sequences set to Megan Thee Stallion's "Savage" or Doja Cat's "Say So," sky-rocketing her to a kind of fame few 15-year-olds can fathom. High-profile collaborations with Dunkin' Donuts and a reality show chronicling her family life on Hulu only added fuel to the fire.
Now, D'Amelio is settling into what she calls a more "normal" life, at least for her, performing six days a week in "& Juliet," a jukebox musical on Broadway.
"I'm very, very lucky with this transition. When I joined the cast, I was alongside 12 new cast members," she says. "So it wasn't just me in the rehearsal room."
D'Amelio is not the star of the show − and that's on purpose.
She is instead part of the ensemble, dancing alongside other primarily non-speaking cast members in support of Juliet (played by Maya Boyd), a reimagined Shakespeare heroine with more agency and a modern outlook. That she is one of many has been grounding for D'Amelio, who once imagined a more typical path of going to college, joining a dance team and pursuing a career in the arts.
"My dream was never to be the focal," she says. "I wanted to be a backup dancer. I wanted to support and be a part of a community. I love being a part of a group that just shows art. I think there's something so special about dancing with other people and telling a story with other people."
That this new community comes in the package of people her age, who have no internet fame, is a bonus.
"You really just go through it together," she says of joining a young cast. "It's all of our first times. A lot of us just moved to New York. A lot of people were fresh out of college, so we're all coming from different places.
"It's not just your co-workers. It really is such a family."
The bonds she has created with the cast are all the more special because they were made outside the influencer hive, she says.
"I would say my friendships within the cast have definitely changed my outlook on friendship," D'Amelio says. "I've definitely been through the ups and downs of being known … and having sometimes friendships that maybe weren't always with the right intentions. And one thing about this cast that makes me so happy is … you're just you. What you are outside of the show means nothing."
The show, which revolves around music from hitmaker Max Martin, is at once a serious meditation on gender roles and romantic power imbalances, and a comical, guilt-free romp through the best club anthems of the 2000s.
D'Amelio says she identifies with Juliet and her struggle to build identity against the backdrop of privileged, if not difficult circumstances.
"I turned 15 and my life completely turned upside down," she says. "I had achieved everything that I had wanted by the time I was 16. And then I was like, 'What do I do now?'"
Broadway has answered that question resoundingly for her. Being part of a dance-heavy production allows her to be known for her craft, a sharp departure from the sphere of influencer-dom where the lines between your real life and "content" are ever blurred.
"When I was in LA I wasn't on a very strict schedule," D'Amelio says. "Now my life is very structured and I love that. That's personally the type of life that I thrive on."
When we speak, an announcement has just gone out that her time on "& Juliet" will extend into September. At the urging of her sister Dixie, she has decided to spend the summer in New York.
"I just love getting to be myself," she says. "I definitely wasn't that for a while on social media, which I think a lot of people could see. A lot of people could see that I didn't know who I was."