The winner of Season 10 of "The Voice," last year she released her third album. She is a singer, songwriter, dancer, and actress originally from Massachusetts, now living in Los Angeles. As a child, she was the title character in the movie, “Curly Sue,” and has also been in other movies including “Parenthood” and “Meet Dave.” She has also had television roles on "Pee Wee’s Playhouse" and "Family Ties."
"I think it's so important that you have collaborators that understand you as an artist and never question your ideas or what you want to do because you can get so easily swayed in so many directions and at the end of the day, all you really need to be is yourself."
"I was the youngest person to ever appear on 'Star Search.' The age limit was seven... I was five... I won five times and then lost in the finals."
"I tried to do Broadway twice, once when I was 18, and once when I was 25 or (26) and both times I failed miserably at the lifestyle, the New York lifestyle, and just that, the rat race, and doing the same show every day. And I was really craving, both times, to be making my own music and being in a band or performing or singing live."
"I always did a lot of different things, but deep down I think I always knew that I really only wanted to be doing music."
"When you're a kid actor, I think you spend a lot of time in your young adulthood being, like, 'Well, I should be or I could be that,' but you forget that you're growing and you have totally different dreams and aspirations as an adult."
"I was living a life that I wasn't proud of... I was stuck, ya' know? I was sort of stuck in this place I didn't want to be, in this job that I was really grateful for, but I was also miserable because it wasn't me and it wasn't what I wanted to be doing."
"(The Voice) is a wonderful way to gain an amazing fan base. It's an amazing way to truly kind of figure out who you want to be as an artist... It's a really great way... to have experiences in performing that you may never have again... But afterwards it's definitely, there is no blueprint for what to do next."
"Sometimes, unfortunately, the follow-through from the label isn't what it needs to be, in my opinion. So, the blame really isn't on 'The Voice,' it's on what happens after. And they haven't really figured out the best way to catapult talent from the show because I think the show really is about the coaches, unfortunately. It doesn't support the artist quite the way that it should."
"There are a lot of mothers who think that once they have children their careers or their lives are over, and I might've been probably one of them for a while. And as soon as I opened my mouth in my blind audition (on 'The Voice'), I was like, 'Oh, I forgot, who I was.' Like, I forgot that, I'm like, this is what I do. And this is what fuels everything I do in my life. And what kind of mom am I going to be if I don't have this to show my children that this is my passion and this is my work and this is what mommy gets to go do and you can do something that you love also. So I started to kind of change my mindset and that became, my kids actually became the driving force behind why I was there and what I was gonna do there. And I think once that happened, I was like, 'I'm gonna win this'."
"I think as a female in the industry there's a lot of pushback, especially at my age, 'cause I'm not 20."
"Wild One"
"Everybody Else"
Bonus audio content with Alisan Porter