Hayley Orrantia

Early life

Orrantia was born an only child in Arlington, Texas, and grew up in nearby Grand Prairie and Highland Village. She is of English, French, Irish, and Mexican descent. She attended public school from elementary to middle school in her hometown of Highland Village. She then attended Marcus High School in nearby Flower Mound until her junior year when she decided to become home schooled to pursue her music and acting training. In high school she used her already well trained voice to get into the schools musical theatre program providing her with her first taste of acting.

Career

Orrantia began singing at the age of nine and began professionally training at the age of 12. She wrote her first song at 13 and by age 14 had recorded her first EP of cover songs. That same year, she began writing with songwriter Jamie Houston who at the time was best known for writing hits for the three of the Disney High School Musical movies. Orrantia recorded the vocals to Houston's "Magic of a Friend" which was on Disney's Tinkerbell and The Lost Treasure soundtrack in 2010. Later that year, Orrantia sang background vocals for Demi Lovato on Disney's Camp Rock 2: The Final Jam soundtrack and background vocals for Miley Cyrus on Disney's Hannah Montana Forever soundtrack.

Her first acting role was at age 15 on a Sprint commercial in 2011. She was cast in the independent film Cooper and the Castle Hills Gang, which premiered at the Dallas International Film Festival.

In the summer of 2011, Orrantia auditioned for the first season of The X Factor. Orrantia was selected from a YouTube video submission and received four "yes" votes from the judges during the live audition phase in Seattle, Washington. Although she originally auditioned as a solo artist, during "Hollywood Week", she and three other female singers, were put into a group for the rest of the auditions. They were eliminated during the fifth week in the live shows.

Since 2013, Orrantia has played Erica Goldberg on the ABC comedy series The Goldbergs. After casting Orrantia and learning of her singing talent, series creator Adam F. Goldberg has written several episodes where Erica sings and plans to continue to highlight her singing talent in future episodes.

In 2015, Orrantia filmed the movie God's Not Dead 2, released on April 1, 2016.

In 2017, she released a new single called 'Strong, Sweet and Southern' which she made a music video for. It has had over half a million views on YouTube.

Charity work

Orrantia wrote the song "Who I Am" for the National Eating Disorders Association and the song "Power of a Girl" for the Girl Scouts of America. She also supports cancer nonprofits Lungevity, Susan G. Komen, and Stand Up to Cancer. Since 2007, she has served as an ambassador for the Texas Music Project, which raises awareness and funds for music education in public schools.