Meet Ty Verdes, The Upcoming Actress Who Is Backing His Career Through Winning Dating Shows.

In early 2020, Ty Verdes sold cell phones and slept on a friend's couch when his career suddenly took off. Stuck In The Middle, a beautiful skinny song she wrote after her shift ended, blew up TikTok. More than 2.3 million people accepted her story that she was stuck in a romantic relationship and used it as the soundtrack for their videos.

That success spread to Spotify, where Verdes topped the viral playlist. So when her song hit two million streams last July, the American singer celebrated with a video from the Verizon store, where she still works.

"Today, someone even recognized me," he said in the video. "Not much, but enough for me to think about getting out of here." The 24-year-old said the purpose of the video was to show that overnight success is a myth. The hit song "doesn't just turn into a million dollars and a beautiful car," he explained. "It's been a wait - which I think I did pretty well."

This is an understatement. The singer, née Tyler Colon, has been waiting for her vacation since graduating five years ago. Unsure of what to do in the music industry, he auditioned for shows like American Idol and The Voice but was turned down only seven times. The songs he released under the pseudonym Tylersemicolon also did not go anywhere. So she applied to join MTV's dating program - and ended up winning the series.

With $50,000 (£36,000) in his pocket, he moved to Los Angeles and started rushing by renting retail, fashion, and film while working on his music late at night. His persistence finally paid off at Stuck In The Middle, and he worked to turn viral success into a sustainable career. Subsequent singles Drugs and A-OK have also garnered millions of streams, and his debut album TV has garnered support from Rolling Stone, Billboard, and Apple Music.

The key to his appeal is the calm and relaxed mood, which is just as accurate on a personal level as in the music. At his apartment in Los Angeles, Verdes told us about his fame.

Did you take the piano exam?

No. Look, my teacher wasn't strict, so if I wanted to play Jurassic Park theme music, he'd set it up for the piano, and then we'd learn how to play it.