Before the 88 million followers and the "Diet Pepsi" music video aesthetic, Addison Rae was just a teenager in Louisiana trying to figure out if she could make it as a sports broadcaster. Honestly, it’s wild to look back at her life before the Hype House. Most people think she just popped out of nowhere in 2019, but her years at Calvary Baptist Academy in Shreveport were where the foundation was actually laid.
She wasn't just a random student. She was busy. Like, really busy.
The Reality of Addison Rae High School Days
Addison attended Calvary Baptist Academy, a private Christian school in Shreveport, Louisiana. If you’ve ever seen her dance videos, her background makes a lot more sense when you realize she was a competitive dancer since she was six. But in high school, she branched out.
She did the whole "popular girl" thing, but not in a "Mean Girls" way. She was a cheerleader. She did gymnastics—though she’s clarified in interviews that the gymnastics was mostly just for fun so she could learn how to flip, rather than for serious competition. People often get that part wrong, thinking she was some Olympic-track gymnast. Nope. Just a kid who wanted to do backflips on the sidelines.
Was she actually bullied?
This is something she’s been pretty open about on her podcast, Mama Knows Best. Despite being active and seemingly "in" with the crowd, Addison has talked about being the "new kid" multiple times. Her family moved around a bit—from Lafayette to Texas and back to Louisiana.
She once shared a story about being picked on for wearing Bearpaw boots instead of UGGs. It sounds trivial now, but when you're 15, that kind of stuff feels like the end of the world. It’s sorta humanizing to realize that even someone who became a literal beauty icon felt like an outsider because of her shoes.
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Life at Calvary Baptist Academy
At Calvary, Addison wasn't just known for TikTok—mainly because TikTok didn't exist for most of her high school career. She graduated in 2019, right as the app was starting to explode.
- Sports: She was part of the cheerleading squad and heavily involved in the school's athletic culture.
- Academics: She’s mentioned she worked hard for her grades. She wasn't just coasting.
- Social Life: She was definitely more of a "Padgett" (her character from He's All That)—the girl who was involved in everything.
There’s a specific piece of trivia people miss: in March 2019, just before she graduated, she was featured in SB Mag as an "Art Junior." It shows she was already on the local radar for being a standout student before the global fame hit.
The LSU Pivot
After graduating from Addison Rae high school (Calvary Baptist), she headed to Louisiana State University (LSU). This is where the story gets legendary in the influencer world. She was majoring in sports broadcasting. She even tried out for the Tiger Girls, LSU’s famous dance team, and—believe it or not—she didn't make the cut.
Imagine being one of the most famous dancers on the planet now and getting a "no" from your college dance team.
She only lasted about three months at LSU. By November 2019, her TikTok was exploding so fast that she realized she couldn't stay in a classroom in Baton Rouge while Hollywood was calling. She convinced her parents to move to LA, and the rest is history.
What You Can Learn From Her Path
Looking at Addison’s trajectory from a small-town high schooler to a global star, a few things stand out. It wasn't just luck; it was a decade of competitive dance training meeting a very specific moment in internet history.
Actionable Takeaways:
- Skills Translate: Her years of high school cheer and competitive dance gave her the physical "vocabulary" to win over the TikTok algorithm.
- Lean Into Rejection: Not making the LSU dance team felt like a failure at the time, but it freed her up to pursue the platform that actually made her career.
- Support Systems Matter: She didn't just run away to LA; she sat her parents down, showed them the numbers, and they moved as a family.
If you're looking for her old high school yearbooks, they’re basically relics now. She represents that final generation of kids who had a "normal" high school experience right before social media turned every teenager into a potential brand. She was a cheerleader, a student, and a kid who got bullied for her boots—and then she became Addison Rae.
For those tracking her career today, her high school roots in Shreveport remain a huge part of her "girl next door" brand, even as she transitions into her indie-pop "Diet Pepsi" era. It's that southern charm that keeps her grounded, or at least, that’s what her fans keep coming back for.
To see how her background influences her current work, you can check out her latest music videos which often play with those "all-American girl" tropes she lived out in Louisiana.