'Pretty Little Liars' Star Shay Mitchell Lied About Her Looks Before By Dying Her Hair and Wearing Contacts
Pretty Little Liars actress, Shay Mitchell, is one of the most popular and confident young actresses around. However, it is notable that the actress used to lie about her look growing up.
In a recent interview with E! Online, she explained that when she was younger, she changed her appearance to try to look more like the majority of people in her hometown in her native Canada. Mitchell grew up in Toronto and Vancouver, where approximately half the population is white. The 27-year-old actress is of Filipino and Caucasian descent.
"It was the first thing people noticed. They'd say, 'Are you the daughter of my nanny? I hated being asked who I was and all my friends had blond hair and blue eyes."
The outlet reported that the actress dyed her hair, wore colored contacts and stayed out of the sun to try to make her skin pale, quoting her as saying that she "wanted to be something she wasn't." Mitchell, Yahoo! Style reported, hated high school, where "mean girls" bothered her, and even ate her lunch in the bathroom.
Nowadays, Mitchell has more than 2.52 million followers on Twitter and many Pretty Little Liars fans look up to the actress, who plays a gay teenager named Emily on the ABC Family show.
Mitchell also has a famous Filipino relative, Lea Salonga, original star of Broadway's Miss Saigon and the singing voice of Disney's Mulan and Princess Jasmine in Aladdin. She told the Philippine Entertainment Portal in 2012 that the performer used to visit her family when she was younger.
"It was amazing because there she was, the voice of Jasmine in Aladdin, in my house!" she said.