Social media sensation Alix Earle on life beyond ‘DWTS’

“I’m not living a normal life for a 24-year-old.”

Alix Earle, in a bit of an understatement, is getting contemplative before jetting off to another dance rehearsal. I’m catching the incandescent social media personality in between attending the A-lister Vogue World event the previous night and a practice session with partner Val Chmerkovskiy for “Dancing With the Stars” later today. It’s a breakneck schedule — and Earle is, in her usual up-for-anything way, taking it in stride. “It’s definitely a ton of pressure, but it’s been really fun just getting to wake up and dance every day,” she says via Zoom from her temporary digs in LA, where she was staying for the duration of the show. “I’ve been loving it!”

Earle danced her way to an impressive second place for the season, performing a fiery freestyle to a mashup of Nelly Furtado’s “Maneater” and Tate McRae’s “Sports Car” during the finale, earning perfect scores from the judges.

It was just her latest exuberant adventure outside the realm of normal life. Earle first arrived in the spotlight in 2022, her “Get Ready With Me” TikToks laying waste to the ubiquitous too-perfect image that influencers dominating the platform were cultivating. “I just always lead with transparency,” says the “Hot Mess” podcaster. “I think that’s really important. And sometimes, things are a disaster! I think those moments are what make us human.”

Her long blond hair hangs loose, and she’s wearing an oversized sweatshirt with the word “Bully” on it. “It’s a movie,” she says (a 2001 Larry Clark true crime film, to be specific). “I went to a party one time, and I was freezing, and I went into this guy’s closet and took this shirt, and it’s been my favorite sweatshirt ever since!” she says with a laugh. (No word on what she may have borrowed from the closet of her boyfriend of two years, 30-year-old Houston Texans wide receiver Braxton Berrios, who played for the University of Miami before being drafted into the NFL.)

Earle’s got an eye for pieces that work for her; she’s known for showing up on red carpets in edgy ensembles like the daring, side boob-baring Tom Ford minidress she wore to this year’s MTV Video Music Awards. For her shoot with us, she shares, “It was like a ’50s housewife type of vibe, and the outfits I got to wear were super colorful and super playful and lots of different fun textures. It was a very fun sort of bitchy energy in this shoot. We had a great day just playing around.” 

Earle says injecting a sense of fun into fashion has elevated her own approach: “I think, for a while, I got just very intimidated by trying to be fashion-forward, like I was trying to follow along with what was cool for other people. So now, it’s about a gut check. If I’m looking in the mirror before I leave the house and I’m like, ‘Wow, I love this,’ then it’s right. If I’m questioning myself, and I’m like, ‘I kind of want to hide,’ then maybe this isn’t something I feel comfortable in. I’ve just let go of the expectations for myself, and I try to find what I enjoy.” 

Back in January, she followed her gut to a partnership with Frame, where she proposed resurrecting skinny jeans. “That was a fun campaign moment,” she says. The Alix jeans, she shares, sold out twice in their first days of launching. That’s the Alix Earle effect, a term brands use for the record-breaking onslaught of sales when she endorses a product. “I guess more than anything,” she says, “it just shows that trust I have with my audience.”

It’s also supercharged her status as an influencer. But Earle’s insistent that she only endorses products she believes in. “It started in college,” she says, when she found a light she could attach to her phone that made her TikToks look exponentially better. “And everyone went and got this light!” Her branding superpower and ease in front of the camera have led to more mainstream outings in recent years: a Super Bowl ad for Carl’s Jr., the cover of Sports Illustrated’s inaugural digital issue last year. She’s also become a brand investor herself, in products including the canned cocktail company SipMargs and Poppi prebiotic soda.

Consistently, she’s found the most meaningful engagement with her massive audience — roughly 13 million across TikTok and Instagram — when she talks about her struggles with acne. The first time she went public with a post in which her face had broken out, she says, “It was the scariest thing ever. I felt so insecure. But I felt like, ‘If I get ahead of this narrative and post it, then maybe it won’t be as embarrassing in real life for me.’ And immediately, the video got 10 times the views I normally got.” The supportive messages poured in, and Earle felt a seismic shift in her relationship with her followers. “That’s when I knew this was something that was really resonating with people.” 

Her skin is still something she struggles with — she’s shared about her multiple stints on Accutane — but she’s come to a place of acceptance, fueled by the groundswell of good wishes. “My skin is always fluctuating,” she says. “It’s a struggle I deal with on a daily basis. It’s not great, but I can say, ‘Here’s how I do my makeup,’ and I can still go out and still feel confident.” 

In breaking the taboo of talking about (and showing) her acne, she’s also encouraged awareness about how filtered so many of the faces we see on social media are — and how common less-than-perfect skin actually is. “It’s probably the most common thing girls say when they come up to me, like, ‘You’ve really helped me feel confident in my skin,’ or ‘You’ve helped my daughter.’ That always brings tears to my eyes. It means the absolute most to me.”

More broadly, Earle exhibits a facility with her existence in the public spotlight that’s rare among the more traditional celeb crowd. “I love it when I meet someone and they say how they feel like we’re best friends,” she says. “Or they bring up something super niche that I posted one time. I want to relate and connect with other people. When they tell me they watch my content, it’s like, ‘OK, this is a safe space, this is a girl I can talk to.’” 

Earle is a New Jersey native whose father, a construction company owner, split from her mother in 2013, eventually remarrying Ashley Dupré, a former escort at the center of a scandal with New York’s ex-Gov. Eliot Spitzer. Earle is a big sister to four siblings — little sisters Ashtin, Izabel and Penelope and younger brother Thomas — with whom she’s incredibly close. She always had her eye on fame, she says. “I don’t know if it’s delusion or confidence or what,” she says with a laugh, “but I think you really need to have a ‘fake it till you make it’ type of mentality. And I always had really big dreams for myself.”

After graduating from high school in Red Bank, Earle headed to the University of Miami, where she started building her TikTok brand while majoring in marketing. She still lives in the city and, in 2023 (the same year she graduated), created a scholarship at the university for other ambitious business majors. 

“I was just shocked at what I was able to accomplish,” Earle says. “I felt so grateful. I wanted to give back to the University of Miami, because I felt like they were so supportive of me in this crazy journey I had my senior year.” Earle was simultaneously finishing her degree while launching her nascent brand. She was traveling, she was recording. “They were so gracious in working around my schedule so I could still show up and get my tests done and get my projects in!” 

Earle is hands-on with the scholarship. “I’ve gotten so close with the students, we’ve really created this little community. More than just a monetary donation, I wanted to be a support system. If I can help them on their path to following their dreams, that means the world to me.” 

She also founded Serving in Heels (formerly Meals in Heels), a cheekily named volunteer group that prepares and serves food to those in need. “It’s amazing seeing people donate their time and physical labor to making these meals,” she says. “It’s different than just writing a check. It’s a really special thing that we’ve been able to build over the past year.”

I ask if she’s felt any additional distance from her audience as she tangos onto bigger stages. “I actually think it’s made me a bit closer with my audience, because I’ve had to be super vulnerable,” she says. “I’m usually on the go with my friends, traveling around. These past few months, I’ve been in one place, dedicating myself to learning this art, and having these moments of doubt, and getting down on myself. I’ve been vlogging a lot more through this process.”

She’s also mulling the possibility of trying her hand at acting. “I love the theatrics of it all,” Earle says of “DWTS.” “It’s made me want to consider taking more acting classes, even if it’s not for a project, because it’s just tapping into a different side of my brain.” Ultimately, says the digital-age It girl, being in front of the camera is where she’s at home. “In terms of being maybe more in the public eye,” she says, “I have loved it. I think it’s only brought good things.” 

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Editor: Alev Aktar; Stylist: Anahita Moussavian; Photo Editor: Jessica Hober; Talent Booker: Patty Adams Martinez; Hair: Vincent Pelletier at A-Frame Agency; Makeup: Lilly Keys at A-Frame Agency using Pat McGrath Labs; Fashion Assistants: Jena Beck, Dominic Turiczek; First Assistant: Max Wilbur; Second Assistant: Grace Newman; Digital Tech: James Weir; Production Coordinators: Zach Roy, Gillian Hormel; Model: Max Wilbur; Dog Model: Kirby