'It kind of feels like the industry left me.' Where is Hairspray's Nikki Blonsky now?

You will likely know Nikki Blonsky as the effervescent Tracy Turnblad from the 2007 film adaptation of Hairspray.

Starring alongside the likes of Zac Efron, John Travolta, James Marsden, Brittany Snow, Queen Latifah, and Michelle Pfeiffer, the role of Tracy Turnblad was cast through open auditions and Blonsky impressed executives right from the beginning.

The actress won her first Critic’s Choice Award and was nominated for a Golden Globe and Screen Actors Guild award for the role. 

Watch the trailer for Hairspray here. Story continues below.

So where is Blonsky now?

Her family got into a fight with an ANTM model.

Only a year after Hairspray was released, Blonsky and her parents got into a public fight with America’s Next Top Model contestant Bianca Golden and her family.

After both families were waiting at Turks and Caicos international airport to fly back to NYC, a fight broke out.

According to People Magazine, Golden’s brother turned to Blonsky and said, "What the f**k are you looking at, you fat white b**ch?" and that was how the argument started.

Both parties have different stories on what actually happened that day, with Golden speaking on The Tyra Banks Show about the situation, stating that Blonsky’s father punched her mother in the face, and further accused Blonsky of kicking her mother in the groin.

There were also accusations that Blonsky’s family were racist and that they said the Golden family had rabies.

The whole event was in poor form from both parties and did nothing for Blonsky’s career.

Blonsky struggled to get roles in Hollywood.

In the four years following her success on Hairspray, the actress only snagged two film credits, neither of them particularly noteworthy. 

Speaking to Out Magazine, in an honest moment Blonsky spoke about how she felt Hollywood left her behind and how it was not her choice to step away from acting. 

"I did not take a conscious step out of Hollywood and so long as I’m alive, I never will," she said, "Singing and acting has been my dream since I was three. It kind of feels like the industry left me."

After Hairspray, Blonsky was typecast, and it got more and more difficult for her to get any diverse roles. 

"We (Blonsky and her Hairspray character) were both plus-size, we both come from loving families, we both want to sing, dance and live our lives, but there's a lot more to me. It felt like they took me to the top of a mountain and gave me everything I ever wanted," she said.

"Then after a year, they all just looked at me and said, 'Okay, bye', and left me with no way to get down."

She became a Twitter meme.

Holding onto that Hairspray fame that she worked so hard for, Blonsky began tweeting celebrities in mass numbers with a message that always began with "Hey, it’s Nikki from Hairspray."

From Lady Gaga to Jennifer Love Hewitt, Blonsky's attempts at networking made her the butt of an Internet joke and eventually a meme. A lot of these tweets have now been deleted.

Images: Twitter

The most heartbreaking (now deleted) tweet exchange would have to be one between Blonsky and her Hairspray on-screen bestie Amanda Bynes in 2013, six years after the film.

Blonsky tweeted the former child star directly, "Hey girl, I texted you, hit me back, love you Boo Boo!! Xoxo".

The next day, Bynes tweeted, "I’m not following you on Twitter, quit acting like you know me", followed by another tweet that read, "When you write me on Twitter and I ignore you because I plan on ignoring you on twitter and in life forever."

Image: Twitter

Image: New Line Cinema

Blonsky is also a make-up artist.

In 2011, the star tweeted about her new work as a makeup artist "It's true! I'm working as a makeup artist. I am proud to be working and helping pay bills, but I'll never lose sight of my dreams."

She was spotted later that year working in a fashion store, but when asked about it Blonsky brushed it off saying she was just ‘experimenting’ to see what it would be like to work at her friend’s boutique.

She's now engaged.

Blonsky is engaged to her non-binary partner Hailey Jo Jenson.

The actress first came out in 2020 on TikTok when she posted a video of herself dancing to Diana Ross I'm Coming Out. In the caption, she wrote, "Hi, It's Nikki Blonsky from the movie I'm Gay," playfully joking about her own meme.

Blonsky was actually engaged Christopher Salute in 2015 before she came to the realisation about her sexuality. 

"I was engaged, and I never wanted to have sex with him, ever. Sorry if he hears this. I never really enjoyed it. I’m going to be 34, so I can talk about my sex life now, I guess, and I never really enjoyed my time spent in the bedroom with men. Once I had an encounter with a woman I thought, ‘Oh, okay. Now I feel more like myself. Now I’m enjoying it. I’m here, and I want to be here," she said, according to Cinema Blend.

"I've played plenty of characters in love in my life and it has been a blessing, but the greatest blessing in life is real love, true love and I am honoured to finally feel unconditional love, and a love that is pure," Blonsky wrote on Instagram.

"A while back I introduced to you all a stunning human @theyleyjo as my girlfriend and now I have the honour, privilege and greatest joy of calling this incredible person my fiance," she continued. "I am so incredibly in love with you @theyleyjo and my love for you is endless, you mean everything to me! Here's to FOREVER my love!!!"

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Feature Image: New Line Cinema

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