Naturi Naughton

About

Naturi Cora Maria Naughton-Lewis (born May 20, 1984) is an American singer, songwriter, and actress. Naughton is best known as one-third of the R&B group 3LW and for her acting roles in the films Fame and Notorious, playing rapper Lil’ Kim in the latter film. Naughton was a series regular on the NBC series The Playboy Club as Bunny Brenda, starred in the first season of the Lifetime drama series The Client List as Kendra and starred in the Starz drama Power as Tasha St. Patrick, a role she reprised in the spin-off series Power Book II: Ghost. In 2022, she starred as Jill “Da Thrill” in the ABC series Queens.

Naughton was born and raised in East Orange, New Jersey, the daughter of Brenda, a part-time paralegal, and Ezra Naughton, a retired accountant. Her father is originally from St. Croix, U.S. Virgin Islands and her mother is from Raleigh, North Carolina. Her musical talent emerged at the age of five years old, when she joined the choir at New Hope Baptist Church in Newark, New Jersey (the same church where Whitney Houston had performed in her youth). Naughton continued her musical studies at the Newark School of the Arts. She attended St. Joseph’s…