While many people are still struggling with one, Alisan Porter has lived about four different careers in her 44 years on Earth. You probably met her in 1991, when she was just 10 years old, hustling poker players and melting hearts as Curly Sue in the John Hughes movie named after the character. The director gave her curly hair with two perms and a daily curl iron. “Rough life!” she joked years later. Hollywood loved her. But Porter didn’t always love it back.
She walked away, went to high school, dated a soccer player, and tried to be “normal”. That didn’t last very long. Not when you have so much talent. By October 28, 2007, Porter got sober and stayed that way, publicly owning it in a 2014 blog post that started with, “Hi, I’m Ali, and I’m an alcoholic.”
Then she made the ultimate comeback three decades later in 2016. Porter stepped onto The Voice stage during Season 10, joined Christina Aguilera’s team, and won the whole thing. At 34, she finally got to say, “I have retired Curly Sue, she is dead! I am now the girl who won The Voice.”
Alisan Porter has always loved music. She wrote songs for Secrets of the Mountain in 2010, sang on Van Wilder: Freshman Year in 2009, and even released Who We Are in 2014 while pregnant and married. Then, in June 2024, The Voice winner dropped a six-song EP, The Ride, produced on her own, with no big budget and no pretending.
These days, Porter balances touring plans for summer 2025, vocal coaching on The Masked Singer, and raising three kids. She married dancer Justin de Vera in Las Vegas on April 16, 2023, after knowing him since childhood. He’s currently touring with Peso Pluma. She’s writing a full-length album.
Alisan Porter isn’t Curly Sue anymore. She’s Alisan Porter.
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