Rise to Fame
Charlize Glass began taking dance classes when she was two years old. In 2008, at the age of six, she made her screen debut as a dancer in a season three episode of NBC’s ‘America’s Got Talent’. Two years later, she performed at the BET Awards 2010. She appeared on the season three episode ‘Keeping It Green’ of Nickelodeon's musical series ‘The Fresh Beat Band’. In the 2011 season of Fox’s ‘So You Think You Can Dance’, she made an uncredited appearance as a dancer. That year, she was also featured on NBC’s ‘The Voice’ and the MTV Video Music Awards.
In 2011, Glass met twin sisters Tiara and Tamara, Camren, Summer, Kaelynn, Jaira, and Angel at a dance convention in Los Angeles. Tiara, Tamara, Camren, and Summer are originally from Hawaii and were part of a group called the Flavahs Crew, a previous version of 8 Flavahz. The other four girls, including Glass, are native Californian. Their Hawaiian counterparts asked them if they wanted to form a dance group together to compete at ‘World of Dance Hawaii’. They agreed, and the eight dancers subsequently participated in the competition under the name Flavahs and Friends, eventually finishing in the third place. Tiara, Tamara, and Summer were also part of a second group, 24VII Danceforce, which ultimately won the competition. Afterwards, they decided to rename the group as the 8 Flavahz.
The four Hawaiian girls, as part of the Flavahs Crew, had unsuccessfully auditioned for the sixth season of ‘America's Best Dance Crew’ in 2011. In 2012, in the seventh season of the show, the new group fared much better. Competing against nine other groups, they excelled in almost every round and eventually emerged as the first runner-up.
Since then, Glass and the rest of the girls have made a number of appearances in music videos and TV shows, sometimes as a group, and at other times, as individual dancers. Glass performed in the music videos for Willow Smith’s ‘Whip My Hair’ (2010), Mindless Behaviour’s ‘Girls Talkin’ Bout’ (2011), Sophia Grace’s ‘Girls Just Gotta Have Fun’ (2013), and Maejor Ali, Juicy J, and Justin Bieber’s ‘Lolly’ (2013).
In 2012, Glass was featured as a celebrity guest in an episode of ‘The Ellen DeGeneres Show’. That year, she also appeared in an episode of the syndicated show ‘Maury’. In 2013, she and Angel performed with Zendaya in an episode of ABC’s ‘Dancing with The Stars’.
In 2019, Glass teamed up with fellow hip-hop dancer Julian DeGuzman to compete in the 3rd season of NBC’s ‘World of Dance’. They made it to the final round of the junior (under 18) division before they were eliminated.
In 2014, she made her acting debut in the short film ‘Playground Politix’. She is active on various platforms of social media. On YouTube, she has tens of thousands of subscribers and millions of views in total. Furthermore, Glass has over half a million followers on Instagram. In 2018, she received a nomination for the Industry Dance Awards for the most fierce dancer under 18.
Family & Personal Life
Charlize Glass was born on November 27, 2001, in California, USA as the only child of Charles Glass and Leah deBolt. Charles used to be a competitive gymnast before he became a bodybuilder. At some point, her parents separated and she has been predominantly raised by her mother. Despite this, she has maintained a good relationship with her father. She is of African American, Portuguese, Bulgarian, Indian, Irish and French descent. Glass has cited her mother as her biggest inspiration. As a single parent, deBolt had to find a balance between her career and personal life so she could give her daughter a comfortable and happy childhood.
She has four Persian cats: Maggie, Luke, Sammy, and Zesty.
