The Sides You Haven't Seen

Yeah, Halle Bailey did the whole mermaid thing. And reached a new level of stardom while she was at it. But the really exciting stuff starts now.

- By Sylvia Obell. Photographs by Lenne Chai

"I saw André 3000 here once and I freaked out," Halle Bailey half whispers. "But I contained myself."

We're sitting in the dimly lit, no-frills dining room of Merkato, an Ethiopian restaurant in Los Angeles. Halle loves this spot because, in addition to the great food, it's a place where people tend to respect your space. Even if you're one of the greatest rappers of all time or, say, a newly crowned Disney Princess having, in celebrity terms, one of the biggest years in recent memory.

Maybe that's why Halle pulled up to lunch by herself, in a black puffer jacket and no makeup, genuinely expecting not to cause a scene. But as the saying goes, she was gon' learn today. "I'm such a fan!" gushes a teenage admirer as she approaches our table. "I knew that was you when you came in-I've been watching you since YouTube."

YouTube, meaning back in 2013, when a 13-year-old Halle and her sister Chlöe uploaded a video of themselves performing a cover of Beyonce's "Pretty Hurts." In the stuff of every teen's wildest dreams, it caught the eye of Bey herself, who signed the duo to her record label and invited them to be the opening act on her tour.' What followed for Chloe x Halle were countless magazine covers (including a Cosmo one in October 2020), four Grammy nominations, and regular appearances on the Freeform hit series Grown-ish.

None of that really compares, though, to what happened next, the reason we're sitting here now, on Juneteenth of all days, after Halle is just back from a frenzied international press tour (England, Mexico, Australia, everywhere). Her leading role as Ariel in the live-action remake of The Little Mermaid pushed the film to gross $560 million and counting and propelled Halle to, well, this.