Childhood & Early Life
He was born on September 10, 1993, in the town and comune of Città Sant'Angelo in the province of Pescara, Abruzzo, Italy to Bruno and Antonella Pasquarelli. His family originally hails from Naples in southern Italy. He has a brother called Leonardo.
He started singing and dancing as a six years old kid. He took guitar lessons and enrolled in an acting school in 2004. He began attending singing classes in 2008 and started learning the piano in 2009.
He did his studies at the pedagogical liceo in high school and specialized in Arts and Entertainment. As a high school student, Pasquarelli got involved with the local rock band called ‘65013’ as a singer.
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Career
While in his last year of high school, in 2010, Pasquarelli gave audition for the fourth series of the Italian singing competition ‘X Factor’, an Italian version of Britain's ‘The X Factor’.
He was selected as a member of the "Boys" category of ‘X Factor’ by Italian record producer and TV personality Mara Maionchi who remained one of the judges of the talent show during its fourth series. Other judges of the fourth series were Enrico Ruggeri, Anna Tatangelo and Elio while it was hosted by Italian DJ, singer, producer, musician and TV presenter Francesco Facchinetti.
In the competition, he sang songs like ‘You're the First, The Last, My Everything’ by Barry White and ‘Tu vuo' fa' l'americano’ by Renato Carosone. He also sang songs of artists such as Elton John and Alex Britti among others.
Pasquarelli remained safe in the competition for the first six weeks and came to the bottom two for the first time in the seventh week along with Cassandra Raffaele. Pasquarelli evaded elimination that week as only Elio, Raffaele's judge, voted for his elimination thus resulting in Raffaele's elimination that week.
Pasquarelli then remained safe for the next couple of weeks and again landed up at the bottom two, this time along with Nevruz Joku in the tenth week. As he was only 17 years of age and Italian laws don't permit people under the age of majority to perform after midnight, Pasquarelli was barred from performing at the final showdown. Thus a pre-recorded performance of the young talent was aired. Finally Pasquarelli got eliminated from the competition that week as the judges’ vote tied while Nevruz became safe through public voting.
He sang Pino Daniele’s ‘A me me piace 'o Blues’ in the ‘X Factor 4 Compilation’ when he got eliminated from the show.
In 2011, he became the presenter of Social King 2.0, the second edition of the television talent show ‘Social King’ that revolved around the world of social networks. It was broadcast on Rai 2 and Rai Gulp and on Cartoon Magic.
During 2011–12 he essayed the lead role of Tom in the Italian comedy series ‘In Tour’ in its two seasons encompassing 46 episodes. His co-stars in the series included Alessandro Betti, Martina Russomanno, Luca Peracino, Andrea Pisani and Arianna Costantin. He also sang several songs of the album of the series.
He landed up with the recurring role of Federico in the first season of the Argentine telenovela musical romantic comedy ‘Violetta’. The series premiered on May 14, 2012 and ran for three seasons encompassing 240 episodes till February 6, 2015.
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Pasquarelli moved to Buenos Aires, Argentina where Violetta’ was filmed. His recurring role of Federico that he portrayed in the first two seasons of the series was transformed into a main character in the third season of the telenovela. His brilliant performance of the character won him a Kids' Choice Awards Argentina in the category of Stunner in 2015.
Meanwhile he along with Valeria Badalamenti took part in program ‘Get the Party’ that aired on Disney Channel Italy in April 2013. The following year he went to a One Direction concert along with Stephie Camarena and Jorge Blanco. He also performed in the Magic Kingdom in Orlando, Florida along with Karol Sevilla.
He took part in the European leg of the Violetta LIVE tour and in 2015 he declared that he had quit the tour to take up a lead role in the Disney Channel Latin America produced Argentine telenovela ‘Soy Luna’.
He plays the main role of Matteo Balsano in ‘Soy Luna’ starring opposite Karol Sevilla. He signed contract to feature in three seasons of the series. The series premiered on March 14, 2016, garnering more than 2.3 million views in Argentina only.
‘Soy Luna’ has already completed two seasons of 80 episodes each. Disney Channel confirmed on May 13, 2017, that the telenovela has been renewed for a third season. The premiere of its third season happened on April 16, 2018.
‘Soy Luna’ is now aired on UniMás in the US as well from Monday to Friday at 6 pm/5c and is slated to broadcast on Disney Channel in the UK and Ireland in July 2018. The series has garnered Pasquarelli both accolades and popularity. He has won the Favorite Actor award at the Kids' Choice Awards Colombia twice, in 2016 and 2017 respectively, and once at the 2016 Kids' Choice Awards Argentina.
He shares very good rapport with his ‘Soy Luna’ co-star Agustín Bernasconi. Still nurturing a dream to become a musician Pasquarelli together with Agustín and Agustín's former co-star Maxi Espindola from Aliados, has come up with covers of many songs which they have posted on the YouTube channel of Agustín. He has also featured on the Gastón Vietto hosted radio show Media Pila along with Agustín.
Personal Life
Since 2014 Pasquarelli is romantically associated with Argentine actress, singer, and TV hostess Candelaria Molfese, his co-star from ‘Violetta’. The two have created a YouTube channel ‘Ruggelaria’ on August 6, 2015. The channel has already thrived in amassing over 1.68 million subscribers and a whooping count of over 142 million views. It has also fetched the two a Viral Moment award at the 2016 Kids' Choice Awards Argentina.
Apart from Italian, Pasquarelli can speak fluently in Spanish language and is taking lessons in English.
In February 2015, he came up with his book ‘Mi Piace!’ (I like it!) in Italy. It was later released as ‘Me Gusta!’ in November that year in Argentina and Uruguay.
