Charli D'Amelio's Incredible Rise to Stardom

Charli d'. Amelio. She is a superstar on TikTok, other social media, a part of a huge multimedia family that is a juggernaut sweeping not only social media, video media, but traditional media with their own broadcast TV shows. Here she is on the Tonight show this week. I'll be giving you my live reaction here on how she comes across.

Charlotte, welcome back to the show. You look fantastic. Thank you so much for coming, coming back the first time you were here, I want to say it was so.

If you're not familiar with her, she does, I believe, dancing skits, other things and was one of the early adopters of TikTok, rose quickly to fame with just billion, literally billions of views.

Like that. And we were talking, we're both excited because you had 3,32 million followers on TikTok and it was like, wow, that's awesome. Here we are, that's not that long ago. Three and a half years ago, you're at 151 million followers. Is that crazy?

I mean, to me it's like I can, like this is a lot of people and I get so nervous. So to think that I actually post for.

So to her credit, she does come across as sincere and genuine. She actually does seem nervous because yes, she may be seen by millions and millions and millions of people around the globe every day, but as she points out, she's not used to being in a room with 150 people watching her. So it's a different environment and I've seen myself, a lot of TV stars who are used to talking about one camera, get nervous and avoid public speaking because it's just different type of speaking. So she does seem a little bit nervous, but she's also coming across as genuine. She is smiling, she does stay composed, she's not fidgeting. And now she started moving her hands. All good things.

Absolutely insane. Yeah, I, I can't really understand it, but I feel like it's better that way.

So she's moving her hands, which in general I like, but it does seem like she's a little bit nervous. She's not quite in the zone the way she is in a typical TikTok video. So you can tell it's out of her typical comfort zone. But she is moving her body a little, her face a little, a little. Her hands are moving, but they don't seem a hundred percent relaxed, normal movement yet. Let's see how she progresses.

Yeah, well, how old are you when you, when, when you first started?

I was 15. 15 on the show last time I was.

Good for you, buddy. That's so tough. I mean, you, you, you stayed strong. I mean, it must be a lot of pressure, you know, to. To start a business.

Not even though she's nervous. She is doing the correct thing. Unless she's smiling. Most people, when they're nervous, do something like this. And the problem with that is you look nervous and you send a message to people that you're not comfortable. Even though she does sound a little nervous and even said she's nervous, putting a smile on her face, nodding a little makes her come across much more comfortable, relaxed and calm.

And keep thinking of new ideas. And then you have the show and now your whole family's involved. Now do you ever go back and watch your old tiktoks?

I do, and I make fun of myself a lot because it is so embarrassing. But it's also fun to go down memory lane and be like, okay, so.

This part she's coming across very genuine. She says, I like to make fun of myself. It's embarrassing. Self deprecating. It's always good, especially when everyone knows you're wildly successful and rich, to seem like you're taking yourself down a peg. Talking about how she finds her own videos embarrassing. And it's good for a laugh and nice to go down a trip down memory lane.

Atrocious. But look, it was so cute. I was a baby.

Yeah.

Yeah, you still are.

So she's using a playful tone of voice, which is good. Nervous people tend to speak sort of in a frozen monotone way and a little bit flat. She's not afraid to really change the tonality, change the speed, the pitch, the volume. I was a baby. So that makes her more interesting, more engaging, and seem much more relaxed on video.

I wanted to ask you something because I saw at Vanity Fair they did a thing you did a lie detector test. You know what I'm about to say? Yeah. You love Dunkin Donuts.

I do.

Okay, well, let's just watch this lie detector.

Do you actually like Dunkin as much as you say you do?

Yes.

And I shamelessly promote them so much.

No.

I'm such a fan of Dunkin Donuts. I'm happy that they're doing, like, cool stuff, though. Do you think you like Duncan more than this person?

Yes.

Do you know who that is? No.

So again, not. Not afraid to make fun of herself and not afraid to be confident. And so that was Ben Affleck, who's one of the most famous movie stars of the last quarter century. And she explained she doesn't know who he is. I don't know if that's true or not, but that is a common phenomenon where people under a certain age are so used to watching YouTube and social media and TikTok exclusively that people who are just famous through movies are not known to them. So it was a funny moment. She's not afraid to laugh, to laugh at herself and to state her opinions with confidence. So that part is working for her.

You don't know who Ben Affleck is?

No, I do. And I've like, fully had conversations with him before. And, like, I know who. That's why it's so unbelievable. My sister clowned me for that so hard the entire ride back. I was so embarrassed, but that's hilarious.

So again, talking about embarrassment humanizes her. Because when you're this young and have a lot of things going for you and this rich, because there's just article after article written about how she and her family are printing presses, making money, coming across humble, talking about embarrassment really works. Now, if you are brand new on the scene and nobody knows you and you're head of a professional services company and you're doing a local TV show or a podcast that's business related, then I wouldn't go out of my way to talk about how embarrassed you are all the time and your failures. But her situation is different in that she is so incredibly well known and people who are so familiar with her successes erring on the side of being extra humble. Talking about embarrassment helps to humanize her and make her more likable. I love doing.

You like it better than this person and you just blanked.

Because I just like, I know how much. I've had two coffees already today. You know, like you were in the.

Zone of Dunkin Donuts.

You didn't care who any other.

I love it. And it's more than anyone. Anyone.

Yeah. Including that person who at the time you didn't know.

Now I've looked at the photos, I feel like we can be equal.

That's so funny. You were telling me backstage, though, that you actually had a great meeting with Jennifer Lopez.

Yeah.

Who is like, gosh, we have that in common. She is unbelievable.

So one of the things she has going for her is she's not trying to act like she is Meryl Streep. She's not trying to act like she's 35 years old. Years old and this big serious media pro who's been around for decades. She'll say, yeah, with a little girl voice. And I believe she's 18 now. So she is obviously a very, very young woman. She's not trying to hide it and she's not afraid to occasionally sound like a little kid. Now, she's obviously an extraordinarily savvy businesswoman and head of a gigantic worldwide media conglomerate, but she's still retaining the essence of who she is and her age and not putting on airs.

She's the absolute sweetest. Every single time I've spoken to her, she can see inside my brain and tell me exactly what I need to hear without even knowing.

Now her hand motion is coming across confident. The first 30 seconds of the interview, she was moving her hands and. And it seemed like I'm a little bit uncomfortable. The movement we see here now looks completely in sync with how she's feeling. She looks completely relaxed. Comfortable and confident. Let's look in a little more detail.

Genuinely, my dream when I was younger was to be a backup dancer for her. That was all that I ever wanted in life.

See how different the hand motion is? It is completely different now because it's 100% in sync with her message, the mood and the emotion. So she's warmed up now that she's 2 minutes and 58 seconds into the interview process.

Me too.

I'm such a fan. We still can.

We still can. Yeah.

So I'm just.

Jennifer, if you're watching, we're in. She is just the best, right? She is a pro when she comes on the show. I mean, she. Her in concert. If she tours again, she will.

But she's insane professional.

She puts the work in, man.

So the other thing she's doing well is occasionally, and I want to stress, you only want to do this occasionally. Occasionally she's looking at the camera like she's talking to a third person there. What you don't want to do is be sitting next to Jimmy Fallon or any other talk show host or reporter, interviewer, ignoring them and staring off in the space of the camera. That's weird. But what she's doing is she's looking at the host most of the time, but then occasionally acknowledging the existence of you and me, the viewers, looking at the camera for just a moment. So she's doing that extremely well.

Yeah, I know Halloween's coming up and you're a big fan of Halloween. Who can you say what you're doing progressing up as?

No, I have, like, a list.

Okay.

Quite a long list in my notes of. I work on it all year long, add to it every week, you know, but so far I only have, like, One or two. Lockdown. I want to do Boo from Monsters, Inc. Because I have the Bob and I feel like it just kind of works, you know?

Okay, that's good.

So she's doing something important here. She's just talking about her life. I feel like it kind of works. You know, you can tell that's not scripted. If someone wrote that out and handed to her on a piece of paper, it would look silly, it would look inarticulate, it would look unprofessional. And yet hearing it come out of her mouth, she just sounds like a normal person being conversational, being candid. So that's good. Sometimes people, when they go on a major talk show like that, are so stressed, they try to memorize talking points. And I'm not hearing anything that sounds like a canned, memorized talking point. Of course, there's some things she wants to promote, but she's not trying to memorize and regurgitate entire phrases, sentences, and bullet points.

But, I mean, my boyfriend and I were trying to do, like, cute couples costumes, but we're so indecisive that we just, like, can't actually get it together.

Yeah, you do have a little time. Yeah. Yeah, you have, like, a. Yeah, you have a.

So she is coming across very relatable here. You know, we can't get it together. We haven't decided what we want. That makes her seem like a real person and a friendly person.

Talk about this. How fun is that?

It's crazy. I mean, all I really know about shoes is the fact that I wear them every day, so I don't know how it actually works. But we have such an amazing team behind us that can.

Again, not afraid to reveal ignorance. Doesn't know a lot about shoes. Just knows she wears them.

Blisters, everything hurts. So it's been really fun to take my favorite parts of shoes and my least favorite parts of shoes.

And so you can see she's clearly more comfortable now. The movement is a little faster. She's not rushing, but her tones and words are coming out smoother, more fluid now that she's really comfortable.

In the interview, actually, you wore them in today. I was like, you should just wear them out with your dress. Why not? They're like. They're cute sneakers. But that's wild that you go, yeah, I have this idea, and I'm gonna make it real. And you're making all this stuff a reality.

I know. It's insane.

So happy for you, buddy. I really. I'm a big. And the show the D' Amelio show is streaming on Hulu. Yes. How's the family holding up? How's.

So here's the plug part. Here's the promotion part. She's on the show to promote a TV show she has on Hulu. On Hulu. So she's there to promote the show on Hulu. She's definitely not being overly aggressive promoting it right out of the gate because they're now in the last minute of a six minute interview and this is the first time being brought up. So she realized her role there is to be friendly, fun, nice, enjoyable, and the host is going to be promoting her show and making it easy.

Parents, are they going? Yeah. Is it going to their head?

The fame, you know, the fam's good. We are together a lot. It's great. I mean, I live with my older sister and we work together, so we spend quite a lot of time together. You know, sisters, we argue, but we love each other.

Family bonding.

Yeah, a lot.

Yeah. We love it every time you come by. Thank you so much and congrats on the show.

Thank you.

On the shoes as well. Charli d', Amelio, everybody. Season three of the d'.

Amelio. So how did she do overall? She comes across comfortable, especially after the first minute, confident, relaxed, likable, relatable. And she didn't get bothered. She didn't say, oh my gosh, I don't know. There didn't seem to be a moment of panic and she came across as a very genuine, likable human being. She did get the plug in for her new TV show on Hulu. All in all, she has all the markings of being a true media pro with a long career. She started out quite early. So did Justin Bieber and a number of other pop stars these days who really get going in social media earlier. But they use that to go into traditional brand deals, traditional networks, traditional labels, but continue with the social media. Justin Bieber has one of the top 20 YouTube channels in the world. Even though he has been record deals and is touring around the world, she's showing similar savvy in that she's leveraging her strength from one platform into other platforms and then traditional platforms like Hulu. So all in all, she is showing all the signs of a media pro who's going to have a lengthy and extraordinarily successful career. It.