A decade after stepping away from Hollywood, former Disney star and singer Bridgit Mendler, 33, has been forced to set the record straight after fans believed she had made a major surprise comeback.
Bridgit, best known for the hit series Good Luck Charlie, Wizards of Waverly Place, and the Disney original film Lemonade Mouth, was a pop star on the rise in the 2010s following the release of her debut and only album in 2012, titled Hello My Name Is…, which featured popular tracks like Ready or Not and Hurricane. After releasing a final EP in 2016, she slowly receded from the limelight to study law at Harvard and launch her own satellite data startup company, Northwood Space.
But this month, fans were delighted to discover the singer’s Spotify profile, which has over three million monthly listeners, had a new EP out.
Bridgit clears up comeback news
The six-song body of work, titled Once Again…, was put out on the streaming platform on 5 June to much excitement from fans. “The queen of music is back to reclaim her throne,” one person celebrated on X (formerly Twitter), while another said they were in “shambles” over the news. The EP cover featured a close-up photo of Bridgit staring down the lens of a camera with her windswept hair styled in a bun.
However, Bridgit resurfaced on social media on 11 June to issue a rare message, claiming that the music was, in fact, not hers. “Sorry to disappoint everyone, the spotify release wasn’t me!” she wrote on X. “When it is, trust me, you’ll know,” she teased with a winky face emoticon.
It seems fans shouldn’t give up on the hope of new music just yet! The Disney alum did not offer any follow-up explanation for the music release, leaving fans to speculate if her Spotify was hacked. At the time of writing, the EP still appears on her profile.
Life away from Hollywood
Brigit made an unexpected pivot from acting and singing to the CEO of a space tech business in late 2023. The star co-founded Northwood with her husband, aerospace engineer Griffin Cleverly, whom she married in 2019.
“I think I started to feel a bit of that disconnect with what I was doing in my day-to-day, in entertainment and started to put out feelers into more of the research domain,” Bridgit told her Lemonade Mouth co-star Naomi Scott in Hero magazine.
She continued: “Then visiting the MIT media lab, I just felt like it was such fertile territory to explore something about an impact that would go into a different space, and beyond. I palpably remember that point in the transition, because music is always my first love, I love it so deeply, but I remember being at South by Southwest and just feeling… Lonely. Finding your artistic community can be so hard.”
Bridgit has a degree from University of Southern California and a Masters and PhD from MIT. She started a graduate program at MIT to focus on how social media could be improved. She was also enrolled at Harvard Law School, where she became Co-President of Harvard’s Space Law Society while completing her JD.
On top of being a space tech CEO, Bridgit revealed in 2024 that she was “a mama to a sweet 4yo boy”. She wrote on X: “Started fostering in 2021 adopted near Christmas of 2022. I’m so lucky — being a parent is the biggest gift and most defining experience there is.”
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