W Magazine [January issue 2002]
BUILDING A POPSTAR!
By Jessica Kerwin
If anyone knows about struggle to become a popstar, it's Amanda latona, another recently signed j records cutie. When latona was 11 years old, she made it to the final rounds before Christina aguilera got the spot she was angling for in britney and Justin’s mouseketeer crew. At 15 her parents moved the family from Pennsylvania to Florida, where latona could better pursue her entertainment career. She played snow white at Disney world, then performed with Joey Fatone in universal studio's beetlejuice graveyard revue, and in universals Hollywood hi-tones with Chris Kirkpatrick, both later of 'Nsync. (She also enrolled in the performing arts program at Dr. Phillips high school in Orlando, alma mater to Fatone and kirkpatrick.)
At 18 she joined the girl group Innosence put together by Lou pearlman (the man behind the Backstreet boys and 'Nsync) and managed by timberlake's mother. She toured with the girls, then started dating aj. Mclean, of the Backstreet boys, all the while amassing a fan base of her own. By the time she left innosense a year later, there were already dozens of websites devoted to her. Some international fans knew her from a European tour, and others loved her because she was cool to McLean's admirers. "I was really nice," she says, "never the bitchy girlfriend." the former miss junior Florida fetched autographs for mclean's fans who didn’t have her backstage access, and when they wrote him adoring letters that included their phone numbers, sometimes she would call and put him on the phone. Though she and McLean broke up a year ago, and she hasn’t been in innosense for three, "I have fans who are just waiting for me and are sticking by me, " she says.
Now Clive's on her side, her album is scheduled for a summer release, and latona is counting her blessings. "I stuck by it, but it’s been a real journey," she says happily. "It’s been 10 years and I’ve wanted it so bad,. I was so ready, you have no idea." |
