Kat Graham

Biography:

Katerina Alexandre Hartford Graham was born on September 5, 1989, in Geneva, Switzerland, and grew up in Los Angeles, California. Her father, Joseph, is of Americo-Liberian heritage, while her mother, Natasha, is Jewish, with family roots in Poland and Russia. Graham’s father worked as a music executive and was the godfather to two of Quincy Jones’s children. Her paternal grandfather served as a United Nations ambassador for four decades in countries including the Netherlands, Sweden, Romania, and Kenya. Graham has shared that her father later left the music business to become a journalist working under his own father at the UN. Both sides of her family experienced displacement—her grandparents were refugees from the Holocaust and Liberia—which she credits as a major influence on her humanitarian work as a UNHCR Goodwill Ambassador. Her parents divorced when she was five, and she later revealed that she became estranged from her father. Graham has one half-brother, Yakov, who was born in Tel Aviv. She was raised in the Jewish faith, attended Hebrew school, and began working in entertainment at the age of six.

Throughout her childhood and early teens, Graham appeared in numerous television commercials for brands such as Barbie, K-Mart, Edison, and Pop-Tarts. At 15, she was noticed by choreographer Fatima Robinson and invited to dance at the BET Awards as a background performer for Bow Wow. This led to additional work dancing for artists including Missy Elliott, Pharrell Williams, and Jamie Foxx, as well as collaborations with prominent choreographers. At 17, she became part of Coca-Cola’s national Fanta campaign as one of the “Fantanas,” portraying the character Capri, also known as Strawberry. She also appeared in a wide range of music videos for artists such as Akon, Christina Milian, Justin Bieber, Usher, John Legend, Nelly, and others.

Graham made her film debut in 1998 in The Parent Trap, playing a camper at Camp Walden. Her television debut followed in 2002 on Lizzie McGuire. She went on to guest star in numerous popular series, including CSI: Crime Scene Investigation, The O.C., Malcolm in the Middle, Joan of Arcadia, Grounded for Life, and Greek. In 2008, she appeared in multiple episodes of Hannah Montana as the girlfriend of Jackson Stewart. She also took on supporting roles in films such as 17 Again and The Roommate.

In late 2008, Graham began filming the sci-fi dance film Boogie Town, though production faced multiple delays and was ultimately halted due to financial and scheduling issues. Set in a futuristic New York where dance battles are outlawed, the film reimagines Romeo and Juliet, with Graham playing Ingrid. Around the same time, she was cast in The CW’s supernatural drama The Vampire Diaries, where she portrayed Bonnie Bennett, a young witch. The series premiered in September 2009 and marked her breakout role. After Nina Dobrev’s departure in 2015, Graham assumed the position of female lead. Her performance earned her the Teen Choice Award for Choice TV Female Scene Stealer in 2011.

In 2010, Graham was cast in the dance drama Honey 2, a sequel to the original Honey. While the film received mixed critical reception, her dancing and performance were widely praised. She later starred in the dance-focused comedy Dance Fu and, in 2017, portrayed Jada Pinkett Smith in the Tupac Shakur biopic All Eyez on Me. Graham also headlined several Netflix romantic comedies, including The Holiday Calendar, Operation Christmas Drop, and Love in the Villa, and appeared in the apocalyptic thriller How It Ends. She is set to portray Diana Ross in the Michael Jackson biopic Michael. In 2022, she competed on season eight of The Masked Singer as “Robo-Girl.”

Alongside acting, Graham has built a substantial music career. She wrote her first song, “Derailed,” in 2002, which later appeared in a film of the same name. She began pursuing music professionally in 2006 and gained early exposure through collaborations with will.i.am on his album Songs About Girls, which led to a world tour with The Black Eyed Peas. Her early singles, including “Sassy,” struggled commercially, but her later releases gained traction, particularly “Put Your Graffiti On Me,” which charted on Billboard’s Hot Dance Club Songs and earned strong critical response. She released her first EP Against the Wall in 2012, followed by studio albums Roxbury Drive (2015) and Love Music Funk Magic (2017).

In 2018, Graham launched The Dance Collective on YouTube, featuring short dance videos. In 2021, she introduced a new artistic persona, Toro Gato, releasing music through NFT platforms that blended audio, video, and visual art in a pioneering format. She continued this project with multiple releases in 2022 and later unveiled her album Long Hot Summer, alongside announcing her first solo world tour. In 2023, she revealed plans for the TIME World Tour, celebrating music from across her career.

Beyond music and acting, Graham is also an author and entrepreneur. She published a poetry collection, The Blue Sky Chronicles, in 2011. In 2019, she co-founded the wellness brand Modern Nirvana and later released The Modern Nirvana Oracle Deck. She co-hosted The Consciousness Collective Podcast with Deepak Chopra and announced her self-help book Seasons of You, which was released in late 2023.

Graham cites artists such as Destiny’s Child, The Beatles, Janet Jackson, Madonna, Grace Jones, and Prince as major influences, describing her musical style as rooted in ’90s nostalgia with a contemporary edge. Thanks to her upbringing, she speaks multiple languages, including English, French, Spanish, and some Hebrew and Portuguese. Her personal life has included high-profile relationships and engagements, and in 2023 she married her business partner, Bryant Wood. In 2025, she announced they are expecting their first child. A longtime vegan, Graham has lived in Atlanta since 2017. In a 2023 interview, she shared that her mother had recently passed away following an illness.