īetween the ages of three and seven, Copeland lived in Bellflower, California, with her mother and her mother's third husband, Harold Brown, a Santa Fe Railroad sales executive. She is a trained medical assistant, but worked mostly in sales. Her mother, a former Kansas City Chiefs cheerleader, had studied dance. Copeland did not see her father between the ages of two and twenty-two. She is the youngest of four children from her mother's second marriage and has two younger half-siblings, one each from her mother's third and fourth marriages. Her father is of German and African American descent, while her mother is of Italian and African American ancestry and was adopted by African American parents. She has endorsed products and companies such as T-Mobile, Coach, Inc., Dr Pepper, Seiko, The Dannon Company and Under Armour.Ĭopeland was born in Kansas City, Missouri, but raised in the San Pedro community of Los Angeles, California, the daughter of Sylvia DelaCerna and Doug Copeland. She performed on Broadway in On the Town, toured as a featured dancer for Prince and appeared on the reality television shows A Day in the Life and So You Think You Can Dance. In 2015, she was named one of the 100 most influential people in the world by Time magazine, appearing on its cover. She has written two autobiographical books and narrated a documentary about her career challenges, A Ballerina's Tale. In addition to her dance career, Copeland has become a public speaker, celebrity spokesperson and stage performer. As a soloist from 2007 to mid-2015, she was described as having matured into a more contemporary and sophisticated dancer. After two summer workshops with ABT, she became a member of ABT's Studio Company in 2000 and its corps de ballet in 2001, and became an ABT soloist in 2007. In 1997, Copeland won the Los Angeles Music Center Spotlight Award as the best dancer in Southern California. Both sides dropped legal proceedings, and Copeland moved home to begin studying under a new teacher, who was a former ABT member. The legal issues involved filings for emancipation by Copeland and restraining orders by her mother.

Meanwhile, Copeland, who was already an award-winning dancer, was fielding professional offers. Two years later, in 1998, her ballet teachers, who were serving as her custodial guardians, and her mother, fought a custody battle over her. Ĭopeland was considered a prodigy who rose to stardom despite not starting ballet until the age of 13. On June 30, 2015, Copeland became the first African American woman to be promoted to principal dancer in ABT's 75-year history.

Misty Danielle Copeland (born September 10, 1982) is an American ballet dancer for American Ballet Theatre (ABT), one of the three leading classical ballet companies in the United States.

Firebird by Misty Copeland