Before Alix Earle Was Famous, She Made Custard at a New Jersey Factory and Got Dropped by Every Sorority at Miami. But Even Then, Everyone Loved Her. Some People Are Just Born Magnetic
· Thought Catalog
Updated 4 minutes ago, September 11, 2026
One of Alix Earle’s earliest memories of being watched came long before TikTok. Paparazzi showed up at her family home after her father’s 2008 affair with Ashley Dupré—the escort at the center of the Eliot Spitzer scandal—became public. She has said she didn’t understand the story until around fourth grade, when she searched for her family online on an iPad.
Born Alix Ashley Earle on Dec. 16, 2000, in Monmouth County, she grew up in Wall Township on the Jersey Shore. Her father, Thomas “TJ” Earle, runs the family construction firm, Earle. He and her mother, Alisa Maniaci, divorced in 2013. Alix has a full sister, Ashtin, and three younger half-siblings.
After sixth grade, around age 12, her father and uncles put her and her cousins to work at the family’s Surfside Frozen Custard stand. She opened the stand on morning shifts, mixed custard, counted inventory and operated a cash-only register. She worked there through early high school and later completed a marketing internship at the family construction company.
Her introduction to Instagram modeling came during sophomore year at Red Bank Catholic High School. Before a family vacation, she walked into Hazel Boutique in Belmar, where the owner, Jenna, asked her to model clothes outside for Instagram and gave her a free bag of clothing. Earle asked for a summer job but initially felt intimidated by the older employees. “I didn’t talk for the first month or two,” she has said—a quiet start Jenna still remembered when she later appeared on Earle’s Hot Mess podcast.
Earle kept working at Hazel through high school and on college breaks. When COVID pushed the store online, she helped photograph products and move inventory to its website. She credits that work with sparking her early interest in social content.
An anonymous Reddit user who claimed to have grown up nearby remembered her as “always well known and popular,” with a job at a “super ‘it girl’ boutique.” They said their interactions were always positive and that they rarely heard of anyone disliking her—“more just indifferent.”
That account is unverified, as is a separate campus story describing her as a regular at a coffee cart outside Miami’s business school who applied for a job but never answered an interview request. Earle hasn’t confirmed the coffee-cart story, and it hasn’t appeared in an interview or local report.
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Earle’s own account of growing up includes years of anxiety and body-image struggles. She was diagnosed with anxiety around 14 after fainting and began taking Lexapro at about 15. She has also described an eating disorder and body dysmorphia during high school, saying those struggles eased at Miami, where her friends helped normalize eating. She and Ashtin have also spoken about getting suspended at Catholic school.
After graduating from Red Bank Catholic in 2019, Earle enrolled at the University of Miami. Sorority recruitment followed in the second semester of freshman year. Her two preferred houses cut her while close friends received bids, leaving her wondering whether she wasn’t pretty enough or had come across as annoying or weird. She has recalled crying in a bathroom with mascara running, considering transferring and later feeling excluded from sorority-only pregames.
She accepted a bid from another house, identified in reporting and on LinkedIn as Zeta Tau Alpha, and stayed for about a year. She eventually left because, in her words, “I hate being told what to do.” Looking back, she has said she wouldn’t change how it happened.
Her first TikTok, posted in February 2020 during freshman year, featured her and her friends in trash-bag outfits. Her get-ready-with-me videos took off in late 2022, during senior year, after she began showing her cystic acne instead of hiding it. She graduated in 2023 with a BBA in marketing.t
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