Janel Parrish

About

Janel Meilani Parrish (born October 30, 1988) is an American actress and singer. She starred as Mona Vanderwaal in Pretty Little Liars (2010–17) and its spin-off, Pretty Little Liars: The Perfectionists (2019), and as Margot Covey in the To All the Boys series (2018–21). She also portrayed Young Cosette in the Broadway production of Les Misérables (1996), and Jade in the teen comedy film Bratz (2007). She finished in third place on the tenth season of Fox’s The Masked Singer in 2023. She has also starred in numerous movies for Hallmark.

Parrish was born in Kāne’ohe, Honolulu, Hawaii, and raised in Honolulu and, in her teens, California. Her mother Joanne (née Mew) is of Han Chinese descent, and her father Mark Parrish, is of German, Irish, and English descent. She has one sister, Melissa Nohelani, who is eight years older and served as an officer in the U.S. Army. Her parents are former bodybuilders, and her mother worked for a Honolulu health club.
At the age of nine, Parrish saw a production of The Phantom of the Opera at the Neal S. Blaisdell Center and fell in love with the idea of performing. She began playing the piano, and within a year was also…