Meg Donnelly

Meg Elizabeth Donnelly (born July 25, 2000) is an American actress and singer who spent a decade becoming one of the most recognizable faces on Disney Channel, then spent the past two years methodically dismantling that as her only identity. She is best known as Addison Wells, the cheerleader at the center of the Zombies franchise, and as Taylor Otto across five seasons of ABC’s American Housewife. Both are television roles, and that is the whole shape of her career: with one indie film credit to her name, Donnelly is a television actor who has been building an exit ramp toward music and the stage.

The exit ramp got real in 2025. She placed third on The Masked Singer singing under a coral costume, released her EP dying art on Range Music seven weeks later, closed the Zombies chapter with a fourth film she executive produced, and then opened on Broadway as Satine in Moulin Rouge! The Musical. That is four different jobs in four different rooms inside twelve months, and the through-line is that she stopped waiting for the industry to reclassify her and did it herself. She also spent 2023 and 2024 voicing Supergirl across four DC animated features, screen-tested in Atlanta for the live-action version, and did not get it.

What she has not accumulated is hardware. Donnelly’s competitive awards record is close to empty, a fact worth stating plainly in a business that treats trophies as proof of arrival. What she has instead is durability: thirteen years of continuous work, a franchise that ranked first among kids and tweens at every premiere, roughly 2.5 million monthly Spotify listeners as of mid-2026, and a WME signing in all areas that reads like a bet on the next decade rather than a reward for the last one.

People also read: Milo Manheim (Zed, Zombies), Dove Cameron (Mal, Descendants), Jensen Ackles (Dean Winchester, Supernatural), Sofia Carson (Evie, Descendants)

Quick Facts

Trailer Video

Video courtesy of Disney+’s official YouTube channel.

Featured Video

Video courtesy of Disney Channel.

Early Life & Education

Donnelly was born in New York City and raised in Peapack-Gladstone, a small borough in Somerset County, New Jersey, roughly an hour west of Manhattan. She is an only child, and by her own account she arrived at performing by elimination rather than calling: she was bad at sports, needed an after-school activity, and landed at Annie’s Playhouse School of Performing Arts in nearby Far Hills at age six, where she began training in voice, dance, and acting. She has described the school as the thing that carried her through an awkward, shy stretch of childhood.

What followed was the standard New Jersey to New York commuter apprenticeship: subway rides between auditions, commercial and print work, and a steady diet of youth musical theater. She became the youngest performer in the APX Conservatory, a singing and dancing group that played venues across New Jersey, and appeared as a featured vocalist in Kids of the Arts, Broadway Kids, and Time To Shine productions in the city. At eleven she booked her first series regular role, playing Ash in the Netflix series Team Toon, one of four kid creators of a fictional animated show called Psycho Squirrel, across 26 episodes.

The theater kept pace with the screen work. In 2013 she was the understudy for Louisa von Trapp in NBC’s live television special The Sound of Music Live!, and she later sang as a featured soloist in a 54 Below reunion concert of the special’s von Trapp children. She originated the role of Mary in a theatrical workshop of Trevor: The Musical, was the American face of Clean and Clear’s 2015 Awkward to Awesome campaign, and starred in an unsold 2015 Nickelodeon pilot called Future Shock. One durable and genuinely odd detail from her high school years: she started learning Japanese so she could talk with exchange students at her school, kept at it, and eventually released one of her singles in the language.

Career Highlights and Milestones

The break came in 2016, and it came as a replacement. ABC had already shot the American Housewife pilot with Johnny Sequoyah as eldest daughter Taylor Otto when the network recast the part and handed it to Donnelly, then sixteen. She held it for five seasons and more than a hundred episodes, learning multi-camera comedy rhythm in the least glamorous and most useful way available: volume. Critics tagged it as her breakout, and by the standards of a young actor’s resume it was the credit that bought her everything after. Between seasons she squeezed in The Broken Ones, an AMK Films indie drama that premiered at the 2017 SOHO International Film Festival, which remains her only conventional film lead.

Then came Seabrook. Zombies premiered on Disney Channel on February 16, 2018, drawing 2.57 million viewers, and paired Donnelly’s Addison, a cheerleader with unexplained white hair, against Milo Manheim’s zombie football player Zed. The franchise turned into one of the most durable properties Disney Channel has run in the streaming era: the first three films each ranked first among kids aged 6 to 11 and tweens aged 9 to 14 at premiere per Nielsen, logged 253 million hours watched across linear and streaming by early 2024, and generated more than 2.7 billion music streams. Donnelly took a co-producer credit on Zombies 3 in 2022 and an executive producer credit on Zombies 4: Dawn of the Vampires in 2025, which pulled 9.3 million global views in its first ten days on Disney+. The reviews were mixed and honest about franchise fatigue, though Screen Rant singled out Donnelly and Manheim as never having been better in the roles even as the film hurried to hand the story to a younger cast.

The two attempts to escape Disney’s orbit went differently. The Winchesters, a 1970s-set Supernatural prequel executive produced by Jensen and Danneel Ackles, gave Donnelly her first dramatic lead as Mary Campbell and put her opposite Drake Rodger’s John Winchester. It ran thirteen episodes from October 2022 to March 2023 and was cancelled in May 2023 as The CW’s new ownership gutted the scripted slate. Warner Bros. Television shopped it; nothing landed. The DC work fared better as a calling card than as a career: she voiced Kara Zor-El in Legion of Super-Heroes (2023), returned as both Supergirl and Harbinger across all three parts of Justice League: Crisis on Infinite Earths (2024), and then screen-tested in Atlanta for the live-action DCU Supergirl. Milly Alcock got it. Donnelly has been unusually gracious about it in public, calling the fact that she was even considered a thrill, which is either genuine equanimity or excellent media training and possibly both.

Which brings us to the reinvention. Donnelly signed with Range Music in October 2024 after years of independent releases dating back to her 2018 debut single “Smile,” a Radio Disney Top 50 number three. She competed on The Masked Singer season thirteen as Coral, placed third behind Gretchen Wilson and Andy Grammer, and was reported as the youngest finalist in the show’s history at twenty-four. Her nine-track EP dying art, executive produced by Tenroc with contributions from Jon Bellion, followed on June 20, 2025. In September 2025 the Moulin Rouge! producers announced she would take over as Satine at the Al Hirschfeld Theatre, and she played the limited engagement from November 11, 2025 through March 1, 2026, picking up a Favorite Broadway Debut nomination at the 2026 iHeartRadio Music Awards along the way. In June 2026 she signed with WME in all areas. The Disney Channel actor label no longer fits, which appears to have been the entire point.

Selected film and TV highlights

• Team Toon (2013)
• American Housewife (2016–2021)
• The Broken Ones (2017)
• Zombies (2018)
• Zombies 2 (2020)
• Marvel’s Spider-Man (2020)
• Zombies 3 (2022)
• High School Musical: The Musical: The Series (2022)
• The Winchesters (2022–2023)
• Legion of Super-Heroes (2023)
• Zombies: The Re-Animated Series (2023–2024)
• Justice League: Crisis on Infinite Earths (2024)
• The Masked Singer (2025)
• Zombies 4: Dawn of the Vampires (2025)
• Moulin Rouge! The Musical (2025–2026)

Major recognition

• Nominated for Favorite Broadway Debut at the 2026 iHeartRadio Music Awards for Moulin Rouge! The Musical, in a fan-voted category won by Tom Felton
• The Zombies 4: Dawn of the Vampires soundtrack was nominated for Favorite Soundtrack at the same ceremony, losing to KPop Demon Hunters
• Finished third on The Masked Singer season thirteen as Coral, reported as the youngest finalist in the show’s history
• Named Radio Disney’s Next Big Thing featured artist, joining an alumni roster that includes Shawn Mendes, Camila Cabello, Alessia Cara, and Sofia Carson
• Moved from performer to producer inside the Zombies franchise, taking a co-producer credit on the third film and an executive producer credit on the fourth
• The Broken Ones premiered at the 2017 SOHO International Film Festival in New York City
• No major competitive acting award wins or nominations to date, a genuine gap rather than an oversight in this profile

Read More Celebrities Biographies

• Milly Alcock Net Worth, Life Story, & Facts
• Peyton List Net Worth, Life Story, & Facts
• Skylar Astin Net Worth, Life Story, & Facts
• Joshua Bassett Net Worth, Life Story, & Facts

Awards and Accolades

Filmography / Notable Works

Net Worth, Income, & Lifestyle

Social Media & Online Presence

Fan communities on social media (unofficial)

NOTE: In addition to any official accounts listed above, many fan-run pages and clip accounts exist across platforms. These are not confirmed to be affiliated with Meg Donnelly. Links and usernames can change at any time.

Trivia & Lesser-Known Facts

• She started learning Japanese in high school so she could talk with exchange students at her school, stuck with it long after the practical reason expired, and later released one of her singles in the language.
• She did not originate Taylor Otto. ABC shot the American Housewife pilot with a different actress and recast the part before the series went out, which means the role that made her career came to her secondhand.
• Her route into performing was a process of elimination. She has said she was terrible at sports as a kid and needed something else to do after school, which is how she ended up at Annie’s Playhouse at six.
• She screen-tested in Atlanta for the live-action DCU Supergirl, doing scene work and stunt work, after already voicing the character in four animated films. The part went to Milly Alcock.
• Her Masked Singer clue case held a cheerleader outfit, a nod to Addison that Rita Ora read correctly. Ora was the only panelist who guessed her identity.
• Her fastest costume change in Moulin Rouge! clocked in at roughly twenty seconds, and she prepared for the Broadway run partly by taking vocal-rest advice from Milo Manheim, who had done Little Shop of Horrors the year before.

Quotes

“I started when I was eight. So I feel like the stakes are always really high for me because of that.”

– Meg Donnelly, Deadline (July 2025)

“I always wanted to be on the other side of things.”

– Meg Donnelly, on taking an executive producer credit, Deadline (July 2025)

“I have been dreaming of this moment since birth, and it is hard to fathom it is even real.”

– Meg Donnelly, on her Broadway debut, producers’ casting statement (September 2025)

“My dream is to perform my music live.”

– Meg Donnelly, on why she said yes to The Masked Singer, TV Insider (May 2025)

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

Q: How old is Meg Donnelly?
A: She is 26. She was born on July 25, 2000, in New York City.

Q: What is Meg Donnelly best known for?
A: Two roles, both on television. She played Addison Wells across all four Zombies films for Disney Channel from 2018 to 2025, and Taylor Otto for five seasons on ABC’s American Housewife. Genre audiences also know her as Mary Campbell on The Winchesters and as the voice of Supergirl in DC’s animated films.

Q: Has Meg Donnelly won an Oscar?
A: No. She has not been nominated for one, and her work to date has been almost entirely in television, stage, and animation rather than theatrical film. Her competitive awards record is thin overall: her most recent recognition was a fan-voted Favorite Broadway Debut nomination at the 2026 iHeartRadio Music Awards.

Q: Where is Meg Donnelly from?
A: She was born in New York City and grew up in Peapack-Gladstone, New Jersey.

Q: Is Meg Donnelly married?
A: No. She has been in a relationship with actor Drake Rodger, her The Winchesters co-star, since publicly confirming it in February 2024.

Q: Does Meg Donnelly have official social media?
A: Yes. She uses the handle @megdonnelly on Instagram, X, and TikTok, all linked from her official Linktree. A large number of unaffiliated fan accounts use near-identical handles, so check against her Linktree before assuming an account is hers.

Upcoming Projects

• Brave Knight (TBA) – An animated musical from Lookbook Entertainment, written and directed by Zachary Derek, taken to buyers at the 2026 Cannes market. Donnelly is reported as part of a cast that also includes Sydney Agudong, Skylar Astin, Jordan Fisher, and Peyton List, with Donnelly and List reported to be in talks to executive produce. The project is being developed in parallel as a stage musical. Distribution and release timing are unset; treat as subject to change until officially confirmed.
• Zombies 5: Secrets of the Sea (TBA) – Greenlit by Disney on March 2, 2026. Donnelly and Milo Manheim are reported to be returning as executive producers but not reprising Addison and Zed, with Freya Skye and Malachi Barton carrying the story forward. Paul Hoen is reported to return as director. Timing can shift.
• New music with Range Music (TBA) – Donnelly has been consistent in interviews that live performance of her own material is the goal, and dying art was framed by her label as the opening of a new chapter rather than a one-off. No follow-up release or tour has been announced. Treat as in development.
• WME representation (June 2026) – Not a project, but the signing covers all areas and is the clearest signal available about where the next slate comes from. Nothing has been announced under it yet.

Interviews & Features

• Deadline, “Zombies 4 Stars Meg Donnelly & Milo Manheim On Passing The Torch” (2025), a joint interview that is the best single source on why she moved into producing and how she reads her own child-actor history.
• The Hollywood Reporter, “Meg Donnelly Signs With WME in All Areas” (2026), the trade item that frames her current standing across acting and music.
• Playbill, “Meg Donnelly on the Advice Milo Manheim Gave Her When Performing in Moulin Rouge!” (2026), a short video interview from the middle of her Broadway run, useful on craft specifics.
• TV Insider, “The Masked Singer Season 13 Results: Meg Donnelly’s Coral Is Third” (2025), the post-unmasking interview where she explains the competition as a confidence exercise for her music.
• Forbes, “How Disney Star Meg Donnelly Is Staying Grounded As She Takes Off” (2022), a career-stage profile from the Zombies 3 window.

Public Appearances & Festivals

• SOHO International Film Festival (2017): Donnelly appeared in New York for the premiere of The Broken Ones, the AMK Films indie drama that remains her only conventional film lead.
• New York Fashion Week (September 2025): She attended the Simkhai Spring/Summer 2026 show in New York on September 11, part of a run of fashion-week appearances in the weeks before her Broadway debut was announced.
• 99th Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade (November 27, 2025): Two weeks into her Moulin Rouge! run, Donnelly performed in New York, singing “Dancin’ Around” from dying art on the NBC broadcast. She had called the booking a childhood ambition when it was announced.
• Descendants/ZOMBIES Worlds Collide: Concert Special (February 19, 2026): She appeared as a special guest performer alongside Milo Manheim in the Disney Channel and Disney+ special capturing the 2025 arena tour, which ran through more than 40 North American venues.
• 2026 iHeartRadio Music Awards (March 26, 2026): Donnelly walked the red carpet at the Dolby Theatre in Hollywood as a Favorite Broadway Debut nominee for Moulin Rouge!, attending with Drake Rodger.