Check Out Gabriella Whiting’s Story

Today we’d like to introduce you to Gabriella Whiting.

Hi Gabriella, thanks for joining us today. We’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
I grew up in a small town in Upstate New York called Skaneateles. I was one of the very few people of color in the town. I am biracial, my father is from Curacao in the Caribbean and my mom is white and American. Growing up I received a lot of racism from my peers in the community. My mom raised me as a single mom. Growing up, I always knew I wanted to be a performer in some way. voice lessons at 10. I would go away to dance Broadway training summer camps when we could afford it. When I was 15, our chorus did a school trip to Los Angeles and after that trip, I made a promise to myself that if I ever had any excuse to move to LA, I would. I absolutely loved it. It was an escape from a reality that I so desperately wanted out of, and I saw it as prep for my next step in life. I believe in my college essay I even compared myself to Elphaba from the musical Wicked. I was definitely giving Sharpay Evans energy in High School.

After graduating high school at 17, I moved to NYC to attend C.U.N.Y Manhattan and pursue my dream of becoming a professional actress. I worked hard enough to receive all of the music scholarships my High School had to offer which was a blessing because it meant that I would actually be able to afford to go to college, coming from a single-income family, my mom worked multiple jobs to be able to support what I wanted to do when I was growing up which I am so grateful for. Without the years of dance class and lessons, I certainly don’t think I would be in the place I am today yet. When I moved to NYC, I immediately began auditioning. I went to everything. and when I say everything I mean EVERYTHING. You know that line in Hamilton “even though they started at the very same time Alexander Hamilton began to climb, how to account for his rise to the top? The man is nonstop” that was literally me. It didn’t matter what show it was I wanted to get in front of the casting directors and get seen. So I would wake up at 4am every morning in cold winter NYC, take the subway into midtown, wait in line for a Broadway audition and hope I get seen, at night I would work my survival job of selling merch in those booths at different Broadway shows, and after hours…I went to the Ritz.

When New York City is your college campus, the possibilities seem endless. I found out that I booked my first professional show Legally Blonde the Musical on Norwegian cruise lines and my first TV show on MTV (a singing competition) my freshman year of college and didn’t go back. After I got off the cruise, it was back to the grind. I consistently stayed doing shows in regional theaters across America. I did two National tours, Saturday Night Fever and the Broadway National tour of Motown the Musical. I played Florence Ballard the Supreme, I am so grateful for that experience and a chance to meet and work with music legends like Smokey Robinson and even Berry Gordy himself. After the second tour, I started dabbling more into film and tv acting and then the pandemic hit. Everything shut down. Life as we knew it came to a total standstill. I immediately retreated back home Upstate for what I thought would be a couple of days LOL. But what I didn’t know was what was in store, Nobody knew. Broadway would be shut down for over a year, Live performances as we knew it would seize to exist. When we were all inside, I began posting on TikTok. I would just post whatever was on my mind.

One day I posted a video about a random fact about Hamilton the Musical that I thought was interesting, didn’t really know if other people would but that video got the most traction I had seen on the app or any social media platform really. That video got about 500,000 views in one day which at the time for me was an INSANE number. So I continued to post about random things I knew and what I was passionate about, things I was afraid or embarrassed to talk about with my peers in the industry because I was constantly fighting to prove my place and capability. I was just being me (most of the time, no makeup), no crazy sets or microphones just me. And people seemed to like it and WANT to hear my opinions. When George Floyd was killed, TikTok really became a place where I was able to voice my frustration and opinions and sadness and fear and my online community of followers shared those opinions and feelings, it was almost like we were able to comfort each other in a time of so much uncertainty and dispare. When the riot at the Capitol happened, I was extremely frustrated. I wrote a parody song in the heat of the moment to a Hamilton song recorded it and posted it the next day, within a day the video got 10 million views. I gained over 100,000 followers overnight from that one video.

While obviously with that amount of eyes on you there’s going to be a lot of hate that comes along with it. Especially when you’re talking about a topic like politics and race, and being a woman of color doesn’t help either. But honestly, Lance Bass making a positive comment on it made all the hate disappear (big NSYNC fan, lol). But honestly growing up a teen in the early 2000s the internet was unregulated, the hate and trolls I get now is NOTHING compared to that. I moved to Los Angeles in November of 2020. Finally being able to move to my dream city has been everything I could’ve wanted and more. Growing up we always watched these movies taking place in Hollywood and this city really does feel like dream in the best of ways. I became a full-time content creator and now work as a resident creator at Buzzfeed, I am so grateful for all of the experiences thus far and looking back even though I didn’t finish college, I kind of had the lessons from life. Wall Street Bankers taught me about finances, Broadway stars taught me how to audition, the Europeans on the ship taught me how to dress, the LGBTQ community taught me how to turn up! Life has been the best school money could never buy.

We all face challenges, but looking back would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
Growing up I was one of the very few people of color in my town. I am biracial, my father is from Curacao in the Caribbean and my mom is white and American. Growing up I received a lot of racism from my peers in the community. My mom raised me as a single parent and worked so many jobs just to be able to afford for me to take dance class. I am so grateful for her for so many reasons. The town I grew up in was also very rich and very…red. Ironically my family has lived in that town for over 100 years but I always felt like an outsider. Quite frankly the only reason my mom could even afford to raise me in that town is because my family bought land back in the 1900s when it was an EXTREMELY different market than it is today. Racism was something I have been experiencing since a very young age. I became so accustomed to it I thought it was normal that I truly thought I was less than my peers because of the color of my skin. When I began high school the bullying got increasingly bad, I was receiving death threats, getting called every racial slur under the sun. I never talked to anyone about it. I kept it to myself because I thought that if I didn’t talk or think about it it wouldn’t be real. I used to say I was just an angsty teen but now I understand it was more than that. I would fall into deep depressive states.

I would lash out on people over the smallest things. I didn’t know how to process the pain I was feeling inside, so I began to take it out on myself. When I graduated high school, I moved to NYC and started working professionally pretty quickly. I was working through the pain and suppressing all of my emotions and traumas. I started engaging in risky behavior, partying all the time, going to clubs five nights a week, lying, and getting in fights. Eventually, it came to a point where I could no longer go without help. I began seeing a psychologist and psychiatrist and was able to get the proper diagnosis and help for that. Depression and Anxiety. At one point, I was in therapy and psychiatry appointments three times a week. It is something that had taken hold of my life for too long and through therapy, proper help, and ultimately ME. I was able to regain my life back and in doing so not only do I internally feel confident and stable, I am able to achieve goals I was blinded by thinking were impossible for so long.

Thanks – so what else should our readers know about your work and what you’re currently focused on?
My work. Where do I even begin. Well, my background is in musical theatre. Prior to becoming a content creator, I performed in Broadway tours, on cruise ships, in regional theaters all across America (and even some in Canada). I’ve done shows including Motown the Musical, Legally Blonde the Musical, Rent, and more. I started taking dance class when I was 3 years old and then began taking voice lessons at 10. I always loved doing all the school plays and watching musicals, I knew I wanted to be a performer very early on. I started transitioning to creating content online when the pandemic hit as a way to express my creativity and talk about what was on my mind and I quickly began to gain a following. I talk about everything from Disney movies to systemic racism and even have some viral parody songs along the way. I love being able to share my experiences and opinions that I have in a fun and informative way and hopefully help others who may be struggling in ways that I have experienced in the past. In November of 2022, I was chosen to be 1 out of 10 residents at Buzfeed for their new residency. I work closely now with Buzzfeed, Huffpost creating content and expanding my own platforms. One experience that really stands out to me was when I played a supreme in the Broadway National Tour of Motown the Musical. I was 22 at the time and felt so grateful to be so young having this experience. I was able to work directly with Berry Gordy the founder of Motown and meet other icons like Smokey Robinson, Suzanne DePasse, and so many others. It truly was a once in a lifetime experience that I am so grateful for and taught me so much along the way.

What do you like best about our city? What do you like least?
I love how geographically diverse L.A is! The fact that you can be on the beach, or go to the mountains, or down to the city is a really incredible. One thing I dislike is Everything is so far apart! Coming from NYC where everything is so close together I wish I could get everything done in one day.

Contact Info:

• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/gabiwhiting/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/gabiwhitingg
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCKTGdNmHflAIPDkvmAJtJrg
• Other: Tiktok: : https://www.tiktok.com/@gabiwhiting

Image Credits
Jonathan Adjahoe