Brittany Ann O'Grady (born June 2, 1996) is an American actress and singer. She is known for her leading roles in the Fox series Star (2016–2019), the Apple TV+ series Little Voice (2020), the first season of the HBO anthology series The White Lotus (2021), and the Amazon Prime series The Consultant (2023). She also appeared in the 2019 film Black Christmas.
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Early life and education
Brittany O'Grady was born on June 2, 1996, in Arlington, Virginia to father Mike O'Grady, who has Irish ancestry, and mother Monqiue O'Grady, who is African-American with Creole roots from New Orleans. O'Grady's mother was a television reporter. Due to being mixed race, she says her Irish last name sometimes throws people off. She has spoken in interviews about the challenges of navigating stereotypes and ignorance about what different races are expected to look like. O'Grady attended Washington-Liberty High School in Arlington, graduating one year early before moving to Los Angeles with her sister. She enrolled in Pepperdine University in Malibu in the spring of 2015 where she would meet her future husband Ben Huyard. However, she experienced a culture shock being mixed race at the private Christian university due to the bigotry and bullying among the student body. O'Grady felt that "There were times where other people did not see the value of me, maybe because I didn't look a certain way to them". O'Grady dropped out after three semesters once her acting career began to gain traction.
