Liza Koshy may be a household name, but success wasn't just handed to her. The vlogger came
from humble beginnings and was just your average teenager once upon a time. From her earliest
family roots to her progression to the top of the digital media world, this is what Liza
Koshy's life was like before the fame.
Before she was hitting red carpets in Los Angeles and interviewing A-list celebrities
for Vogue, Koshy was just a normal girl from Texas. The star originally hails from Houston
and, according to The National, was born to an Indian father and a German mother.
Coming from a biracial family actually helped Koshy coin her catchphrase. She frequently
calls herself, quote, "just a little brown girl with big dreams." Clearly, Koshy hasn't
forgotten her roots. The star admitted to The National that her social media career
actually grew out of boredom during her high school years. Still, Koshy still has plenty
of Houston pride. She frequently name-drops her home city in her YouTube videos and has
consistently shared how grateful she is to share a hometown with Beyoncé.
According to Koshy, her parents kept tight reins on her when she was growing up. When
chatting with Access in July 2018, Koshy explained how strict they really were, particularly
her father. She claimed her parents both always pushed her to put school above anything else,
adding,
"[My father] was forcing me to study for SATs at one point and actually took my phone away,
and stopped me from doing my career for a second. But I had an iPad so I continued."
Seeing as Koshy is a full-time content creator, it appears her parents have softened on the
academic side of things. However, that wasn't the only thing they were strict about. Koshy
insinuated that tattoos were a no-go in her household, which she joked about in her 2017
video "Why I Tattooed My Entire Body." In the clip, the YouTuber was pictured with fake
tattoos all over her body. When posting the video, she joked,
"Sorry mom. My parents are going to disown me."
Koshy may not talk about her family too much, but every once in a while, she'll drop a nugget
of information. In 2018, she chatted with Wired, and completed an interview challenge
called "Koshy Answers the Web's Most Searched Questions." One of those questions was "Does
Koshy have siblings?" and she revealed she's actually the youngest of three children, saying,
"I do! My mom made three brown girls and she's a white woman herself, it's pretty exciting.
She made me, my sister Olivia, and my other sister Rahel, which is a very Indian name."
"I am the youngest, so my parents kept trying until they had the best and just had to stop."
That being said, you probably won't catch a glimpse of Olivia or Rahel on Koshy's social
media pages too often; she limits family appearances on Instagram.
Some things never change, and Koshy's appreciation of her privacy is one of them. Of course,
her super sleuth fans can figure out certain facts about her personal life, but for the
most part, Koshy keeps the finer details to herself. In 2014 she told The Daily Cougar,
"I really don't put my family out there too much mainly because it is an invasion of their
privacy. My followers do not necessarily need to know what part of town I live in or that
I have two older sisters."
Another downside of receiving a lot of online attention? The cringe-worthy messages Koshy
receives from men sometimes. She told The Daily Cougar how things can easily escalate
online, saying,
"Sometimes I get creepy comments on Vine from guys. It can go from a compliment like 'Hey
you're pretty' to something uncomfortable quickly."
Even before blessing the world with her dance moves on YouTube, Koshy had professional dance
training. If you take a scroll through her Instagram, Koshy's earliest posts show her
competing with her dance team and training with her friends.
Koshy continued to dance with the drill team throughout high school, as Narcity reported.
In fact, she wound up being the team captain, according to the popular YouTube series Draw
Their Life. Koshy was the subject of one of the videos segments, and the clip explained,
"[Liza] loved to dance. Also, she is an amazing dancer."
Koshy's earliest dance training proved to be the ultimate example of foreshadowing.
In 2019, she landed a role in the Alicia Keys-produced dance comedy Work It, which follows the story
of a girl who auditions for her school's dance team.
Koshy went all out for her high school senior prom and she even paid tribute to her South
Asian roots with her stunning dress. Koshy shared a number of photos to her Instagram
account, and she looked beyond gorgeous. The dark two-piece ensemble featured detailed
embroidery across the shoulder and waistline.
Judging by the photos, Koshy had a blast at her school dance, and she didn't attend solo.
Koshy shared a photo with her date for all to see, as well as the sweet prom-posal he
used to ask her to the event. Her date taped a sign across a stretch of highway, which
read: "Liza prom?" Koshy was, of course, touched by the gesture. Not only did she say yes,
but she dished about the promposal moment on Twitter, saying,
"Baby just asked me to prom."
Koshy's parents may have been strict when it came to education, but Koshy is the first
to admit she was far from an academic star. In a March 2020 content segment with MTV,
Koshy role-played all the "characters you might meet in high school".
"Can you use the restroom or may you use the restroom?"
But when it came time to play the smart kid, she let out a burst of laughter, saying,
"I don't know how to be the smart kid, I wasn't the smart kid in high school."
As it turns out, Koshy didn't belong to one clique in particular. Like she said in her
2016 YouTube video "Mixed Kid Problems: Growing Up Multicultural," she embraced a vast array
of different crowds in school. She admitting that it was "confusing" when it came time
to mark down her own race on ethnicity surveys, adding,
"I loved hanging out with people of different ethnicities."
"Where was the box for mixed? Or the box for brown and confused?"
Even while she was still in high school, Koshy used her comedic skills for a good cause.
In March 2014, Koshy posted a video to her Instagram taken during her school lunch period.
In the clip, she carried out a skit in an effort to bring awareness to bullying. The
skit appeared to be a hit with her classmates, who looked on and recorded her. In sharing
the video, Koshy also shared an important message, writing,
"Bullying and cyberbullying have become a huge problem. I believe every person has been
a victim of bullying in one way or another."
Koshy loves to pay it forward when she can, and her days of demanding change obviously
started when she was younger. In the Instagram post, she petitioned her classmates,
"Help us put an end to bullying and violence. I need everyone to post an anti-bullying instagram
post or Vine."
Koshy reached massive career success, but college didn't have much to do with it. In
her 2018 segment "Koshy Answers the Web's Most Searched Questions" with Wired, the YouTuber
gave a very honest answer when asked if she'd gone to college, saying,
"I went to school for one year. I majored in nothing, because I went for one year."
"It was amazing, I don't remember it."
Koshy being a normal college student not all that long ago may sound hard to believe, but
a quick scroll through her Instagram page shows a plethora of throwback photos taken
at her university.
According to Narcity, the comedian attended the University of Houston in Texas and primarily
focused her studies on business marketing. By 2015, though, she dropped out, that was
the year Koshy moved to Los Angeles to pursue a career in entertainment. And clearly, the
bold move paid off! According to Money Inc., Koshy was worth an estimated $4.4 million
by 2018.
If Koshy's quick rise to fame surprises you, you're not the only one. Even Koshy herself
didn't plan on becoming an internet mega-star. During a 2019 festival appearance in Dubai,
the star detailed how what began as a fun hobby became a full-blown career. According
to Arab News, she told the audience,
"Vine came out then I had a career all of a sudden out of nowhere. Vine was a giant
group chat for me and my friends, so I only had my friends following me. I was creating
videos for them."
According to Koshy, her group started with just a handful of friends and she never expected
it to take off the way it did. She admitted,
"I had a really tiny circle with three friends and now it's grown...I pinch myself every
moment because I'm living a dream that I didn't even think of dreaming before."
Not only did Koshy have humble beginnings, but her vlogging career did too. Koshy's earliest
videos were on the now-defunct social media network Vine, and they were all self-shot.
According to her 2018 interview with Forbes, she used nothing but her cell phone to launch
her media career. She recalled,
"It was just me, with my phone, in my car, dancing along, talking or making a really
bad joke."
Koshy eventually made the leap over to YouTube, but acknowledges she had to make do with what
she had, creating videos completely guerilla-style. When speaking in late 2019 to the audience
at the festival in Dubai, Koshy explained how she managed to record her videos pre-fame.
She said,
"I was just making videos...in my bathroom, making videos in my living room; making my
home essentially a set."
As of May 2020, the vlogger boasts nearly 18 million subscribers on YouTube.
As with any child with strict parents, Koshy's interest in an entertainment career didn't
instantly get the stamp of approval from mom and dad. Koshy spoke with Showbiz Cheat Sheet
in 2020 and reflected on her parents' early disapproval and how it helped her connect
to one girl she mentored during a trip to Vietnam. She recalled,
"Her parents weren't always supportive of it which is how we related. My parents weren't
actually supportive of me when I first started out being a creator. So it was really cool
to tell her hey, you're going to be alright."
According to the YouTube star, her parents' emphasis on school made them wary of her YouTube
career. In 2014, she told The Daily Cougar,
"My parents are really strict about me keeping my priorities straight and staying focused
on school."
However, she admitted they ultimately came around and are "proud" of their daughter.
"My dad ended up encouraging me, and my mom, they fully support it and they send me ideas
every week that I don't use because they're pretty bad."
Not everyone can cross over from YouTube stardom to bonafide Hollywood celebrity status, but
Koshy made the leap successfully. According to The Hollywood Reporter, producer Tyler
Perry caught wind of Koshy's YouTube videos, and offered her a big break: a role in the
film Boo! A Madea Halloween.
As for Koshy, she was elated by her first movie role. She gushed about the opportunity
to break into the cinema world in an interview with LA Exclusive TV, saying,
"There are so many cast members that are also influencers like myself online, and it's absolutely
amazing to see that transition from digital media and all these social media platforms
onto TV and film."
Since then, Koshy added a slew of roles under her belt, but her first role was arguably
the most exciting. Koshy could hardly contain her excitement about working with Perry. She
gushed,
"My initial reactions after reading the script was just crazy. It was just absolutely nuts
how hilarious his writing is."
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