Trisha Paytas
Trisha Kay Paytas is an American media personality, YouTuber, webcam model, writer, and singer. Born in Riverside, California, Paytas was raised in Illinois before relocating to Los Angeles in her teens. After moving, Paytas became a stripper and began acting on the side, primarily as an extra. She appeared in a number of music videos for artists including Eminem and Amy Winehouse. In 2006, Paytas created blndsundoll4mj, a lifestyle-oriented YouTube vlog channel. Following the success of several viral videos, Paytas garnered a significant following, reaching 100,000 subscribers in 2012 and 1,000,000 in 2014. As of May 2020, she has accumulated roughly 4.88 million subscribers and roughly 1.7 billion lifetime views.
Alongside her online presence, Paytas was a regular in television shows The Greg Behrendt Show, Who Wants to Be a Superhero?, and British Celebrity Big Brother, as well as hosting the podcasts Dish With Trish and Let's Talk About Sex. Paytas starred in the short film Viral Video, and its sequel, also serving as a producer for both. Since 2014, she has worked independently as a recording artist, releasing one cover album, 8 extended plays and 35 singles. She has also embarked on her own headlining tour to promote her music. Other endeavors include authoring several self-published books, modeling for lingerie and fetish photoshoots, and her own perfume, eponymously titled Trish.
Early life
Paytas was born in Riverside, California, to Frank and Lenna. Her parents divorced when she was three years old, after which she moved with her mother to Illinois. Paytas was raised outside Rockford, Illinois in the city of Freeport. From 1996 to 2003, she lived in Byron. At 15, Paytas relocated to California to live with her father and brother, and enrolled in a Catholic online school program. She returned to Illinois to live with her mother at age 16, attending high school in Pecatonica. She graduated from Pecatonica High School in 2006, where she was a cheerleader, and moved to Los Angeles to pursue acting the day after her graduation.Career
2006–2012: Beginnings on YouTube
After moving to Los Angeles to pursue acting, she began doing professional lingerie modeling and worked as a stripper and an escort to support herself. She attempted to break the world's fastest-talker record on Guinness World Records Unleashed, but was unable to break the record. In 2006, Paytas made her first television appearance as a correspondent to Greg Behrendt on The Greg Behrendt Show. She appeared on the show for its full thirteen–episode run before it was cancelled after only airing one season. The following year in 2007 she appeared on the second season of Who Wants to Be a Superhero?. Paytas played "Ms. Limelight". She was on the show for four episodes although she was eliminated from the competition portion of the show on the third episode. On January 3, 2007, Paytas started her YouTube channel "blndsundoll4mj". The channel was originally dedicated to movie director Quentin Tarantino, whom Trisha idolized, but soon after being created, Paytas began to focus on other types of videos. Blndsundoll4mJ primarily gives fashion, beauty and relationship advice videos.From 2008 through 2010, Paytas appeared on television shows including The Price Is Right, The Ellen DeGeneres Show, Jane by Design, Huge, and Modern Family, among others. She portrayed Jessica Simpson in the 2009 Eminem video "We Made You". She also appeared as a background dancer for rapper M.I.A. at the Scream Awards in 2010. Later in 2010, she appeared in the videos for "Playing the Part" by Jamey Johnson, "A Girl's Got to Do What a Girl's Got to Do" by Barbwire, and "Tears Dry on Their Own" by Amy Winehouse. Paytas made an appearance in a Guns N' Roses' tour video, playing a mobster's girlfriend. Paytas starred in the Les Savy Fav video for their song "Sleepless in Silverlake" and portrayed Marilyn Monroe. In 2012, she played a stripper in The All-American Rejects' music video for "Beekeeper's Daughter". Paytas appeared in 2010 on an episode of My Strange Addiction as a self-admitted tanning addict. Despite being aware of the high chances of developing skin cancer, Later the following year, in 2011, she appeared on an episode of The Millionaire Matchmaker but was not accepted.
2013–2016: Online success and music releases
During this time, Paytas made a number of "trolling" videos, which she told Business Insider were a way to "dumb myself down" in order to get more attention and views. This involved videos claiming that dogs do not have brains, or that she was voting for the 2012 Republican candidate for President of the United States, Mitt Romney. In an interview with Perez Hilton, she commented on her career aspirations, saying:I have a lot of insecurities. I just want people to know me and to love me, because I have no love. I literally have zero friends. So I like people to adore me, but I never had a talent that made people adore me. So I would try everything, but nothing really worked. But, honestly, YouTube was a godsend. I could literally be myself, and people loved it.
On January 18, 2013, she appeared on an episode of Dr. Phil, discussing the phenomenon of slut-shaming, particularly its prominence on social media.
In June 2014, Paytas created a companion' channel, "TrishasLife", later Trisha Paytas, which featured personal vlog videos. In turn, she began posting her more stylized or music-related videos on her main channel, blndsundoll4mJ. She also began posting mukbang sessions and eating-challenge videos. As of July 2017, she has over one billion lifetime views for her more than 2,500 uploads. She has been credited for popularizing "haul" videos and mukbang eating challenges, as well as being noted for her frank, often controversial discussion of her personal life.
In 2014, Paytas starred opposite Richard Grieco in Viral Video, a 15-minute horror short film that she co-produced. She also appeared in its sequel, Viral Video 2, in 2015.
On November 26, 2014, Paytas released her first single, a cover of Eartha Kitt's "Santa Baby". On December 12, Paytas released its music video. The following April 27, she released a music video for "A Little Less Conversation", directed by Andrew Vallentine, and on May 7, one for her debut EP, "Fat Chicks", also directed by Vallentine. The video for "Fat Chicks" was featured on websites such as Cosmopolitan, The Huffington Post, and Business Insider. Van Halen member David Lee Roth provided the introduction to the accompanying music video for Paytas' cover of "Hot for Teacher".
She released the EP Superficial Bitch on June 29, 2015. Its music video was released on July 23. A second music video from the EP titled "Leonardo DiCaprio" was released on August 7. The following year, in June 2016, Paytas released her fourth EP, Daddy Issues. It was her first EP to appear on the Billboard charts, debuting at number 25 on the Heatseekers Albums chart.
Paytas made an appearance on the June 2016 Brooks Wheelan episode of To Tell the Truth, as an imposter for the creator of the selfie stick.
In September 2016, she released her fifth EP, Showtime. In April 2017, she released her sixth EP, Chicken Fingers and Lipo.
2017–present: Concert tour and podcasts
She later became a housemate on Celebrity Big Brother 20. Paytas controversially left the show on August 11, 2017, after only 11 days.On November 26, 2018, Paytas released her eighth EP, Chicken Parm and Hearbreak.
In February 2019, Paytas released a cover of "Shallow" by Lady Gaga and Bradley Cooper where she sang both parts. In four days, the video garnered over a million views.
In 2019, Paytas embarked on her first headlining tour, The Heartbreak Tour. In August 2019, Paytas appeared on an episode of The Zach Slang Show. During this time, Paytas participated on the YouTube show The Reality House as a house member. In August, Paytas released a series of videos calling out David Dobrik's Vlog Squad, with whom she was once closely affiliated.
In January 2020, Paytas revived her podcast, The Dish with Trish. Originally on SoundCloud as an audio-only, one-take show, Paytas revamped the show with a full set and a video set up. She has interviewed celebrity guests including Mickey Avalon, Crystal Hefner, and Corey Feldman, as well as YouTubers such as Jeffree Star, Joey Graceffa, and Shane Dawson.
Personal life
Paytas describes herself as a devout Roman Catholic and has stated that her faith has helped her in her personal struggles. In the past, Paytas has endorsed numerous Republican presidential candidates such as Mitt Romney in 2012 and Donald Trump in 2015, though she has said these remarks were merely jokes and she has never voted in an election.Paytas has said she was inspired by comedian Andy Kaufman, whom she has been a fan of since childhood: "He made his living just being all sorts of characters, and nobody really knowing who the real Andy Kaufman is. And in a sense, I don't think any of you know who the real Trisha Paytas is either."