America’s Got Talent winner Grace VanderWaal offered a glimpse at a shimmering ensemble she donned to celebrate her 21st birthday Jan. 15. The America’s Got Talent alum was shining bright as she celebrated her 21st birthday Jan. 15 in a glittery gown fit for the festive occasion.
In an Instagram carousel posted on her big day, the singer—who won the talent competition series in 2016 at just 12 years old—modeled a sheer beige minidress covered in sparkly sequins. Across several photos and videos, she struck several playful poses for the camera, alternately winking and blowing kisses.
While Grace is all grown up now, she recently reflected on coming of age in the spotlight following her AGT victory. “I honestly felt like it helped me as a person,” she told content creator David Carmi in a TikTok video shared in August 2024, “because it threw me into scrutiny and just kind of forced me to sink or swim.”
The “So Much More Than This” singer then offered some “corny” but “true” advice, urging others to “accept who you are”—though she also warned of deceptive influences as she shared another valuable lesson: “Don’t trust everyone.” While Grace has admitted her public upbringing brought its own ups and downs, she’s used her experiences as opportunities for personal growth.
“I feel like I keep learning about how to take care of myself better and my biggest thing recently is just acknowledging your triggers,” she told E! News in 2022. “Staying in your pajamas all day—that’s gonna make me depressed. Let’s get up, get dressed.”
And she hasn’t let negativity get in the way of her well-being.
“I feel like I’ve been doing this for so long that you get desensitized to hate online,” she went on. “I went through a ton of hate online when I was really young. I’m happy it happened though because it prepared me for this life.”
Curious how other child stars are doing now? Find out below. Jonathan Taylor Thomas
JTT rose to fame playing brainy and adorable middle child Randy Taylor on Home Improvement starting in 1991. His big-screen roles that decade included voicing young Simba in The Lion King (though that’s not him singing) and starring with Brad Renfro in 1995’s Tom and Huck and Devon Sawa in 1997’s Wild America.
He left Home Improvement in 1998 (Randy went to Costa Rica) to focus on school, but kept acting on his list of extracurriculars.
He had a recurring role on 8 Simple Rules in 2004 and in 2013 reunited with TV dad Tim Allen to direct (and appear in ) several episodes of Last Man Standing.
But though JTT backed away from the spotlight to live his life, which included graduating from Columbia in 2010, Thomas doesn’t need to be onscreen to cause a splash: On the rare occasions the paparazzi snap him, the sightings go viral.
Jonathan Lipnicki
Few 6-year-olds have made splashier movie debuts than Lipnicki, who went toe-to-toe with Tom Cruise in the charm department in Jerry Maguire and got almost as many memorable lines. He went on to roles in the Stuart Little films, Doctor Dolittle (voicing Baby Tiger), The Little Vampire and Little Mike, and he guest-starred on Dawson’s Creek, but took a break to have a normal high school experience.
He’s still in showbiz as an adult, starring in the 2023 Lifetime movie Secrets at the Museum. The L.A. native is also a black belt in Brazilian jiu-jitsu and in May 2021 he volunteered to provide additional security outside a mid-city synagogue amid a rise in anti-Semitic vandalism and harassment. In 2017, Lipnicki opened up on Instagram about the bullying he experienced in middle school, hoping that sharing his experience could lend some comfort to others.
He was “made fun of relentlessly” by some kids who then, down the road, must have forgotten their bad behavior and tried to friend him on Facebook. “I was told I was a has-been and would never book a job again,” he recalled. He started having nightly panic attacks, anticipating the next day’s humiliation. Yet he had survived, adding, “I am grateful for the amazing life I have and I hope I can pass on that it DOES get better.”
Mara Wilson
Wilson starred in Mrs. Doubtfire at 6 and Matilda at 9 before putting acting on the back burner.
The writer and activist released her memoir Where Am I Now?: True Stories of Girlhood and Accidental Fame in 2016 as well as appeared on Broad City and loaned her voice to the animated shows BoJack Horseman, Big Hero 6: The Series and Helluva Boss.
“Once, someone I’d considered a friend asked, with a big smile, ‘How does it feel to know you’ve peaked?'” Wilson recalled in a February 2021 New York Times op-Ed about the perils of early fame for girls. “I didn’t know how to answer, but now I would say that’s the wrong question. I haven’t peaked, because for me, The Narrative isn’t a story someone else is writing anymore. I can write it myself.”
Joseph Gordon-Levitt
Gordon-Levitt was a veteran actor by the time he starred as Tommy Solomon, a member of an alien fact-finding mission posing as an average human family, on 3rd Rock From the Sun. The show premiered when he was 14 in 1996, also the year he was seen as Demi Moore’s son in the thriller The Jury.
Soon, he was the nice guy with a crush in 1999’s 10 Things I Hate About You, a hustler in 2004’s Mysterious Skin and the determined teen sleuth trying to find out what happened to his missing ex-girlfriend in the 2005 noir drama Brick.
He could still pass for a teen well into his twenties, but once he started playing adults, his various highlights have included 500 Days of Summer, G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra, Inception, 50/50, The Dark Knight Rises, Looper, Lincoln, Don Jon (which he also wrote and directed) and Snowden. Gordon-Levitt explored more real moments in history as a prosecutor in 2020’s The Trial of the Chicago 7 and he played Uber co-founder Travis Kalanick in the series Super Pumped. He quietly married Tasha McCauley in 2014 and they share two children.
Natalie Portman
Thanks to her preternaturally poised performance at the age of 12 in 1994’s The Professional, Portman was tagged with a certain gravitas at an early age—and she’s still living up to her reputation. Since her auspicious debut, she’s starred in huge blockbusters (Star Wars: Episodes I through III; the Thor franchise and Avengers: Endgame), indie favorites (Beautiful Girls, Garden State), comedies (Mars Attacks!, Your Highness), intense dramas (Closer, Brothers) and apocalyptic thrillers (V for Vendetta, Annihilation).
She won the Best Actress Oscar for her turn as a ballerina who’s losing her mind in 2010’s Black Swan earned another nomination for channeling newly widowed Jacqueline Kennedy in Jackie. She made her feature directorial debut with 2015’s A Tale of Love and Darkness, adapted from Amos Oz’s autobiographical novel.
She married her Black Swan choreographer, Benjamin Millepied, in 2012 and they’re parents of son Aleph and daughter Amalia.
The Terra and Traveler have retro looks, a body-on-frame platform, electric power, and an available plug-in-hybrid setup that should eliminate range anxiety.
For those who remember the Scout name from the 1960s and ‘70s when it was owned by International Harvester, nostalgia should suffice for an introduction. For everyone else, meet the forthcoming Scout Terra pickup truck and Traveler SUV, a pair of electric off-roaders from this revived brand. They don’t just rely on retro styling, though, as their body-on-frame construction and solid rear axle are unique among EVs and should make them capable. The Scout siblings will also be sold as plug-in hybrids, which could help encourage adoption.
While electric pickup trucks and electric SUVs continue to proliferate, it’s currently slim pickings when it comes to serious off-roaders. The Terra and Traveler look to fill that niche, aided by their plug-in-hybrid variants that will eliminate range anxiety.
Scout’s proprietary platform combines an old-school body-on-frame configuration with new-age electric powertrains. The Ford F-150 Lightning also rides on frame rails, but unlike the Ford’s independent rear suspension, the Scouts feature a solid rear axle—a setup that’s currently not offered on any other production EV.
Both the pickup and the SUV will be available with two powertrains. The EV versions will have an 800-volt architecture and an electric motor on each axle, as well as mechanical locking front and rear differentials. Scout hasn’t announced a combined horsepower figure, but it’s estimating the all-wheel-drive setup will combine for 1000 pound-feet of torque. The PHEV models will use a gas-fed engine that only charges the battery and doesn’t power the wheels. Without the “Harvester” range-extender, Scout estimates the all-electric Terra and Traveler will be able to go up to 350 miles on a full charge. The Harvester models should be good for over 500 miles, Scout says.
The Scout models will go up against electric vehicles including the Ford F-150 Lightning, GMC Hummer EV pickup and Hummer EV SUV, Jeep Recon, and Rivian R1S and R1T. The Terra and Traveler’s “Harvester” setups will also face off against plug-in hybrids such as the Jeep Wrangler 4xe and Ram 1500 Ramcharger.
