Embracing a lifestyle of family plays, theater camps, and acting coaches beginning at age three, she was born in Germantown, Tennessee, and raised in Tennessee and Mississippi before her family settled in Los Angeles. Holt continued to participate in community theater throughout childhood, winning several auditions for national TV commercials along the way, until she landed her first film role in the 2009 indie drama Black and Blue. In 2011, at age 13, she earned a spot in the cast of the Disney martial arts sitcom Kickin' It. The following year, while still working on the TV series, she starred in the Disney Channel original movie Girl vs. Monster, and performed three songs for the film, which appeared on the Walt Disney music compilation Make Your Mark: Ultimate Playlist. She left Kickin' It in 2014 for the lead in another Disney sitcom, I Didn't Do It, and announced later that year that she'd signed with Hollywood Records. In 2015, amid her series and other TV episode work, she opened the annual Fourth of July Stadium of Fire show in Provo, Utah for headliner Journey, and began work on her debut album. Its lead single, the uplifting pop anthem "Phoenix," arrived in May 2016. ~ Marcy Donelson