It is not every day that a Disney actor goes on to attend the University of Southern California, graduate with a Master’s degree from MIT, have four million monthly listeners on Spotify, be the CEO of a space startup, and be a mom. Bridgit Mendler breaks this mold.
Mendler signed with Disney in 2009, starring in hit shows such as Wizards of Waverly Place, Lemonade Mouth, Beverly Hills Chihuahua, and her most notable role as Teddy Duncan in Good Luck, Charlie. Good Luck, Charlie is one of Disney’s most popular shows, with 7.48 million viewers. Outside of her Disney fame, she has played multiple roles in sitcoms and a Netflix Original musical. However, Mendler hasn’t been seen on screen since 2019, as she has been busy excelling in her alternate artistic field: Music.
Mendler’s music career kicked off in the early 2010s with her contributions to the Lemonade Mouth soundtrack. With the movie’s success, Mendler signed with Hollywood Records in 2011. A year later, she released her one-hit-wonder album, Hello My Name Is…. Even if you aren’t a die-hard Mendler fan, chances are you have jammed to the album’s two singles, Ready or Not and Hurricane. Her album peaked at number 30 on the Billboard Top 200 and has recently seen a spike in streams over a decade later. Mendler embarked on two tours and released nine other singles over the years.
Mendler isn’t confined to just Arts and Entertainment. In the late 2010s, she began to focus on her education, enrolling at the University of Southern California with a major in anthropology. When asked why she chose to attend college, Mendler shared that her parents had always encouraged her to “do everything.” Even after leaving USC, Mendler’s ambition kept her pursuing her education. In 2018, she announced she was attending MIT and majoring in humanity and technology, concentrating on improving social media. Mendler took to X to share her struggle with social media throughout her career, “I felt like there was a more loving and human way to connect with fans.”
Why stop at attending just two major universities? In 2022, Mendler was enrolled at both Harvard Law School and MIT. This past March, she confirmed that she was just two months away from earning her Juris Doctor from Harvard Law, has her Masters from MIT, but is still working on her PhD.
With her Bachelor, Masters, and soon-to-be PhD, Mendler created a new space startup, known as Northwood Space. Mendler and her husband, Griffin Cleverly, are the co-founders of this startup that aims to create “a data highway between earth and space” by making more ground stations for satellites.
On top of acting, music, school, and space engineering, Mendler has embarked on a new endeavor: motherhood. Mendler and Cleverly adopted a four-year-old boy at the end of 2022, after fostering for many years. “Being a parent is the biggest gift and most defining experience there is,” Mendler wrote on X.
Despite all that she has accomplished, Mendler has always prioritized others. Over the years she has worked hard with multiple charities and received numerous awards for her activism. She fights for environmentalism with charities like Disney’s Friends for Change and is vocally anti-bullying with organizations such as Common Sense Media.
Mendler can do it all. Since the 2000s, she has been breaking boundaries set by the multiple industries she takes part in. In an interview with USA Today, Mendler said, “I want to know something outside of what I do.” From acting to music to school, her aspiration to learn and grow has made her the versatile and intelligent person she is today.