The secret is out.
The daughter of Academy Award-nominated actor Lou Diamond Phillips has been modeling for two years, but kept her family connections out of the public eye until now.
Gracie Phillips has been working with Too Faced cosmetics, South Beach and make up artist Pat McGrath.
‘When I started, I really just wanted to try and do it by myself and say yes, I did it all by myself,’ Gracie said in an exclusive interview with the Daily Mail. I never wanted anyone to say to me, she did this job because of her dad, because of her last name, because of who she is.”
Now that her career is established, she feels comfortable announcing her Hollywood pedigree.
Her father is best known for his starring roles in La Bamba and the Academy Award-nominated Stand and Deliver. His mother is Filipino American and his father is Scottish and Irish. Phillips also has some distant Chinese, Japanese, Hawaiian and Spanish ancestry.
“I’m incredibly proud of Grace and the fact that she wanted to earn this, she wanted to make her own way – I was supportive of that from the beginning,” said her dad tp the Daily Mail.
“She’s been booking jobs, she’s been receiving praise and getting incredibly good feedback based on her own merit, without getting any qualifications.”
Grace has a twin sister, Isabella and an older sister, Lilli. Her mother is her father’s second wife, former Penthouse model Kelly Phillips.
Cameras are nothing new to Gracie. When she was young, it was common for paparazzi to try to get photos of her with her dad.
She also spent lots of time watching her dad on movie sets.
“Ever since I was a little girl, when the show comes on, I put on the wings, put on a pair of high heels, a sparkly bra and underwear and pretend,” Gracie said.
Her dream is to walk the fashion runway during New York Fashion Week and to be a Victoria Secrets model.
“What I hope is going to happen is obviously I’d like to say I’ll get some bigger jobs and bigger things will happen,” she said. “‘That’s my hope. But also I feel like it is a positive that I didn’t go into it that way at first.”
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