Kalani Brooke Hilliker is an American dancer, actress, model, fashion designer, and youtuber. She rose to fame in 2013 as a contestant on the Lifetimereality seriesAbby's Ultimate Dance Competition and subsequently appeared on Dance Moms, becoming a regular cast member from 2014 to 2017.
Life and career
Hilliker was born on September 23, 2000 in Mesa, Arizona to Kira Girard and Matthew Hilliker. She has two younger maternal half-brothers, Jax and Jett. As of October 2019, Hilliker lives in Los Angeles. Hilliker started dancing at the age of two. Her mother initially enrolled her in dance classes because she thought it would be fun to dress her daughter up. Hilliker then furthered her training at Club Dance in Arizona when she was five-years-old and began her ballet training at the Master Ballet Academy in Arizona at the age of 10. In 2011, Hilliker and several of her dance friends entered Disney Channel's Make Your Mark Ultimate Dance Off contest, vying for the prize of a featured role on the hit show Shake It Up. Her group, AKsquared, won the competition, and was featured in the Shake It Up episode "Camp It Up." The on-camera experience left Hilliker knowing she wanted to pursue being a professional dancer. In 2013, Hilliker became a series dance regular on the ABC Family show Bunheads, appearing in multiple episodes as Baby Bun. That same year, she took part in Lifetime's Abby's Ultimate Dance Competition, a dance reality competition series. Hilliker made it to the final four, having finished in fourth place. Following her top four finish, Hilliker and her mother, were invited by Abby Lee Miller to join the cast of Dance Moms, having first appeared in the season four episode "Big Trouble in the Big Apple." Hilliker and Kira became series cast members at the beginning of the competition season during season five. She danced as a part of the Abby Lee Dance Company until the second half of the seventh season, when she left to form The Irreplaceables with Nia Frazier, Kendall Vertes, Chloe Lukasiak, and Camryn Bridges, which was led by Dancing with the Stars alum Cheryl Burke. In December 2017, after the seventh season of Dance Moms wrapped, Hilliker, Kendall, and Chloe embarked on The Irreplaceables Tour, holding workshops and dancing in cities across North America and abroad. Camryn did not join The Irreplaceables on tour. Meanwhile, Nia wasn't able to go on tour with The Irreplaceables due to family reasons. In 2018, she began starring on the web series Dirt. Currently, Hilliker has a sock line called "Pretty Feet by Kalani", which is sold at Claire's. She also has a prom dress collection, which she helped design in partnership with PromGirl.
