She's easily one of the most influential people in the music industry, with a career that's
spanned decades.
But this Grammy-winning superstar didn't just land on the scene as rap royalty.
So how exactly did she "Work It"?
Here's the stunning transformation of Missy Elliott.
Missy Elliott wasn't born with a silver spoon in her mouth.
Instead, she was raised in a working-class home — the only child of her mom Patricia,
who worked as a dispatcher for a power company, and her dad Ronnie, a former marine.
But despite her humble origins, Elliott knew she was destined for greatness, something
she proclaimed to her classmates when asked what she wanted to be when she grew up.
She told MTV,
"Everybody was saying doctors and lawyers, teachers.
I would always say.
I wanna be a superstar.
And the whole class would bust out laughing."
But the laughter of her classmates didn't deter her — and she never wavered in her
ambitions.
She told Elle,
"I was like, 'I'm going to be a superstar.'
So when I would get in my room, it was like, if y'all don't see it, I'm going to create
it myself."
"I always wonder if any of them out there remember me.”
Elliott's father was a violent man, and he regularly assaulted Elliott's mother in front
of her.
Although he hit Elliott once, he was also verbally abusive.
Elliott told The Guardian that on one particular occasion…
"He pulled a gun on us and forced [my mom and I] both outside [without clothes].
He was crazy like that.
I lived in constant fear."
"I was screaming daddy please don't kill my mother, please don't kill my mother.”
Elliott taught herself how to cope with the abuse early on by retreating to her room and
losing herself in music.
There, she performed for her dolls and wrote letters to her favorite artists.
"I used to take my Baby Alive's, all my doll babies, and sit em up against a wall and imagine
that they were screaming for me.”
Missy told The Guardian,
"I had friends but I never stayed at anyone's house because I was scared that I would come
home and find my mother dead.
I remember seeing my mother crouched in the corner with her arm out of its socket.
There isn't a day goes by that I don't think about it all."
Eventually, both Elliott and her mother moved into a safe living situation.
Elliott's ascent into superstardom first kicked into gear when she was introduced to fellow
legends in the making Timbaland and Pharrell Williams in high school.
The three of them would hang out and work on music together, and found a rhythm despite
how different they were from each other.
Missy told Elle,
"Tim was very quiet.
Pharrell was way on planet Mars.
And, you know, I was just whatever.
I was kind of crazy.
But for whatever reason, we all understood each other."
At the time, Elliott was also in an all-girl group called Fayze — later renamed Sista,
which was produced by Timbaland — and eventually caught the attention of singer-producer Devante,
according to The Guardian.
He invited the group to cut a record in New York, but the band fell apart in the studio
and dissolved before their rise ever began.
In the meantime, Elliott and Timbaland's creative partnership was about to blow up on the scene.
It didn't take long for word of the songwriting talents of Elliott and Timbaland to get noticed.
And that was due mainly due to the work the pair did on the late singer Aaliyah's 1996
double-platinum album One in a Million, which has been heralded as a crowning achievement
in R&B music, according to Billboard.
After that, the same record companies that had previously told Elliott she weighed too
much to be a solo act, came crawling back, hoping to get a piece of the action.
But Elliott wasn't about to bow to the people who crushed her dreams in the past.
She told The Guardian,
"They'd broken my heart.
They said I could sing, I could write, but that I looked wrong.
That was the lowest thing you could say.
I didn't forget."
"That that just fueled her passion to prove everyone wrong."
Elliott held out until she landed her own record label: Gold Mind Inc.
With full creative control, Missy was now poised to take over the world.
Where were you when the video for "The Rain (Supa Dupa Fly)" dropped on MTV?
Well if you were watching TV in 1997, you were witnessing history being made.
Elliott knew exactly what she was doing for her debut single, deftly deploying symbolism
in her costume choices.
She told Elle,
"The outfit was a symbol of power.
I loved the idea of feeling like a hip-hop Michelin woman.
I knew I could have on a blow-up suit and still have people talking.
It was bold and different."
Elliott added that she had always seen herself as a creator and innovator, and now the world
had proof.
Supa Dupa Fly was a critical and commercial success.
But for Elliott, it was just the beginning.
When Elliott entered the music business in the late 1990s, she was immediately subjected
to the exclusionary beauty standards imposed on women at the time.
Initially, that was a barrier, as record execs wouldn't even give her the time of day because
of her weight.
Fortunately, however, Elliott got some major support from heavyweight hitters like Mary
J. Blige.
Missy revealed on Behind The Music,
"When we first met Mary J. Blige, she pulled me to the side and she said, 'Don't worry
about your size or anything.
You're going to be a star.
Hold your head up.'
That always stuck with me."
So rather than shrink back or crash diet, Elliott instead decided to embrace herself,
rendering her a body positivity icon long before hashtag body positivity was even a
thing.
According to The Guardian, she highlighted what others had perceived as imperfections,
sporting wild, larger-than-life costumes and taking up as much space as possible.
And everyone was there for it.
"Man, I hate diets."
One thing that became apparent fairly early on in Elliott's career was that she's actually
very shy.
She admitted to Interview magazine in 1999,
"I'm not a party person.
You may catch me at a Puffy party every now and then, but I'm not out like that all the
time.
Right now it's just me and you in the room, but if there were five or six other people
in here, I'd start getting wheezy and thinking everybody's staring at me."
While it may sound impossible to believe for someone who has performed in front of packed
stadiums, being on stage is easier for Elliott than being in a crowded room.
She added,
"I just block everybody out.
With six people in here, we're this close, so they're looking in my face and it feels
like they're waiting for me to mess up a word or something.
People at a concert are farther away, and with the lights I can't really see their faces."
After her game-changing debut album, Elliott released five more studio albums between 1999
and 2005: Da Real World, Miss E…So Addictive, Under Construction, This is Not a Test!, and
The Cookbook.
In that time, she also won multiple awards including six VMAs, two Soul Train Awards,
and a Grammy, along with a slew of nominations.
During those years she also lost a significant amount of weight — something she did for
herself, to improve her energy.
She told Interview,
"I wanted to be in good health for my shows 'cause I do a lot of dancing and running around,
and I don't want my heart to fail on me.
I go to the gym maybe three days a week, and I do exercises every day — 300 hundred crunches,
two hundred leg lifts."
Elliott had been moving at a breakneck pace in the early 2000s, releasing albums, making
videos, and touring the world.
But in the latter part of the decade, she found herself suffering from dizziness and
unexplained weight loss.
And as it turned out, Elliott had a thyroid condition called Graves' disease, according
to Elle.
"Anybody that has Graves disease, like, you feel like you're fin' be outta here"
Missy told The Angie Martinez Show,
“I remember not being able to write cause I couldn't even lift up a pen, I couldn't
even lift up a cup."
Fortunately, these days Elliott has her condition under control.
But it's something that's left her forever changed.
Although Elliott went on a rather long hiatus during the late 2000s and early 2010s, that
doesn't mean she was taking it easy.
In fact, Elliott was quite busy with a variety of projects, most of them involving producing
other artists.
She said via Billboard,
"A lot of people don't know a lot of records that I've written or produced.
[…] I always said if a man would have done half the records that I've done we would know
about it.
But we don't know all the records I've done for other artists."
"They just see the glory of it, but they don't see what goes on behind the scenes.”
Elliott also released the occasional single during these years, according to the outlet.
Even though she wasn't churning out albums, she was definitely lighting it up behind the
scenes.
2015 turned out to be huge for Elliott, as it was widely hailed as her comeback.
It started when she got a call from Katy Perry, who wanted Elliott to perform during her halftime
show at the Super Bowl.
Missy told i-D,
"I immediately thought that she would want me to perform Last Friday, the record that
we did together.
So when me and Katy got on the phone, she said she was a fan of my work and that she
wanted me to perform, but to perform three of my records."
In addition to killing it at the Super Bowl, Elliott dropped "WTF (Where They From)" in
December of that year, a track on which she collaborated with Pharrell Williams.
“He was the one that came up with the melody, and made it feel cool where it didn't feel
dated."
The song was a success, peaking at No. 22 on the Billboard charts, and proving Elliott
was just as hot as ever.
"I think the world just missed her.
That's all I have to say."
In May 2019, Elliott was awarded an honorary doctorate by the Berklee College of Music,
giving the commencement address as well.
"I don't even know how I'm standing here.
But I thank ya'll.
I thank God."
In an emotional speech, she told the new graduates to never give up, and she shared her own story
of perseverance, saying,
"As long as you are breathing, it is never too late."
Elliott was also inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame, according to Billboard — becoming
the first female rapper to receive the honor.
Once again, she told her audience to keep up the hustle and to push through any and
all obstacles.
In a taped speech, former first lady Michelle Obama commended Elliott's trailblazing efforts,
saying,
"Thank you not for just sharing your gift with the world, but for being an advocate
for so many people out there, especially young girls who are still figuring out how to make
their voices heard."
Then in August 2019, Elliott was honored by MTV with the Video Vanguard Award, where she
also gave a career-spanning performance, featuring a medley of her hits: "The Rain," "Hot Boyz,"
"Get Ur Freak On," "Work It," "Pass That Dutch," and "Lose Control."
"To be recognized for the hard work means more than anybody could know."
Of course, she didn't forget her iconic bubble suit.
Elliott has come a long way since her early days — especially when it comes to money.
According to Celebrity Net Worth, she's worth an estimated $50 million, thanks to her decades-long
career in the industry.
And while she isn't one to always spend her money on luxuries like private jets, she's
certainly enjoyed spending her cash in other ways.
"People who may not be as successful or going thru things, they don't wanna see you up there
with the mad money.”
Elliott has amassed quite the car collection, including a Porsche 911, two Lamborghinis,
a Rolls-Royce, a Range Rover, a Ferrari 599, and a Jeep Cherokee that she says is her favorite,
according to Elle.
And as of 2019, Elliott also owns seven houses.
But when it comes to where she really feels rich, her greatest personal triumph is that
her mother is fully taken care of — and finally happy.
Missy told The Guardian,
"[My mom] has every car she wants, from Benzes to Ferraris.
She has a 15,000 sq ft house.
I love to see her smile again.
[…] As for me, if I see a pair of sneakers or a diamond ring that I like, I just buy
it.
I see […] $1 million every couple of months.
That's real nice, too."
"I just always say spend your money wisely."
That sounds like one luxurious happily ever after.
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