Sofia Carson stands out as a multi-platinum vocalist rooted in dance-oriented pop, an actress, and an activist. Her Disney Channel roles in The Descendants film series paved the way for guest spots on 2016’s “Love Is the Name” alongside J Balvin and on Norwegian DJ Alan Walker’s 2018 track “A Different World.” In tandem with her charitable efforts through UNICEF, Make-A-Wish, and the Ryan Seacrest Foundation, she received the title of global ambassador for the Latin Grammy Cultural Foundation in 2019. Early 2022 brought her self-titled debut album, followed months later by a Billboard 200 entry for the Netflix soundtrack to Purple Hearts, where she portrayed a struggling singer/songwriter. Later that year she delivered “Applause,” Diane Warren’s Oscar-nominated song for the film Tell It Like a Woman, and in January 2024 she previewed Act 1: The Fall with the single “I Hope You Know.”
Born Sofia Daccarett Char in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida, in 1993 to Colombian immigrant parents, Carson started dance lessons at age three and stepped onto the stage for the first time in 2001 as Dorothy in a Miami production of The Wizard of Oz. She trained in dance and vocal performance at the University of Miami’s summer theater program in 2002, sustained those studies through high school, and later attended UCLA, majoring in communications and French.
Her professional acting career began in 2014 with the part of Chelsea on the Disney Channel series Austin & Ally. The next year she joined MTV’s Faking It and played Evie in the Disney Channel movie The Descendants, also contributing vocals to its soundtrack. In 2016 she starred in the Disney Channel’s Adventures in Babysitting, released her first solo single “Love Is the Name” featuring J Balvin on Hollywood Records, returned for The Descendants 2 in 2017 with songs such as “Ways to Be Wicked,” and appeared on Alan Walker’s “Different World” in 2018. That same year she became the first global ambassador to the Latin Grammy Cultural Foundation, starred in The Descendants 3, and portrayed Ava Jalai on Freeform’s Pretty Little Liars: The Perfectionists.
Over the following two years Carson issued more pop singles, among them “Miss U More Than U Know” with R3HAB and 2021’s “Fool’s Gold,” which reached the Top 40 on the Billboard Pop Airplay chart. She put out the EP Leave Your Heart on the Dance Floor in 2021 and her full-length debut, Sofia Carson, in March 2022.
Co-writing tracks with Justin Tranter, Skyler Stonestreet, and additional collaborators, she landed in the lower half of the Billboard 200 later that year with the original soundtrack to Purple Hearts, which paired her opposite Nicholas Galitzine. The set included “Come Back Home,” a single that charted in Switzerland, Canada, and the U.K. while reaching the Top 30 on Billboard’s Digital Songs Sales tally in the U.S.
Also in 2022 she released “Applause,” Diane Warren’s theme for the anthology film Tell It Like a Woman, which earned an Oscar nomination for Best Original Song; both artists performed the track at the March 2023 ceremony. January 2024 saw the arrival of “I Hope You Know,” the first single from her album Act 1: The Fall.
