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Alisan Porter, Former “Curly Sue” Child Actor, Wows Judges on “The Voice”

Written by

Kimberly Ripley

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Alisan Porter is back, but unless you’ve already heard this story, you wouldn’t recognize the former child star. Best known for her role as the title character in the 1991 film Curly Sue, in which she starred alongside Jim Belushi, Alisan Porter is now an accomplished singer who brought judge Christina Aguilera to tears on The Voice earlier this week.

“The past 24 hours have been crazy-amazing,” Porter shares of her experience in auditioning for and making it on to The Voice. “I’ve had such an amazing outpouring of support. It’s been really incredible.”

“Any reservations I had got squashed the second I stepped on stage to do my blind audition, and I just feel super comfortable and excited about going forward,” she adds.

It was Monday when Alisan Porter belted out her own rendition of Linda Ronstadt’s “Blue Bayou,” resulting in a four-chair turn on behalf of judges. Adam Levine, Pharrell Williams, Christina Aguilera, and Blake Shelton were astonished at her abilities.

“I really wanted to sing a classic,” she says. “I love songs from that era, I love kind of blending folk and rock and country, so I felt like I wanted to sing a classic with all those elements and that was really something I thought would work and I love that song.”

Life hasn’t been easy for Alisan Porter since she starred in Curly Sue. She struggled with alcoholism, which she speaks openly about in her blog.

“I was living in NYC when I realized I needed to get sober. I was miserable and overwhelmed with life. I was heartbroken and realizing that what had always worked for me in the past was NOT working at all. Not even a little bit. I felt trapped, scared, and sad and I was ready to really go for broke or get better. So, I did what every good user does and I prayed to a god I had never believed in… and then called my mom. Days later I was off to treatment, just like that. For the next four years I went to meetings, worked the steps, got a sponsor, found a god of my own understanding, prayed, meditated and basically grew up. Growing pains were inevitable, I felt them often but I continued on the path because unlike my old ways, this way was working,” she writes.

“I got married,” she continues. “I had kids, I got a new house, I re-did the floors (I love my floors), I got a car (that my dad didn’t pay for). I became a better friend, a better daughter, a better artist, better sister… I just got better. I grounded. But, you see, I also got responsibility. Addicts don’t like responsibility. I got responsibility not only in the form of doing the dishes and making my bed. I got PEOPLE. People that look like me, people that need me, people that copy everything I do and learn basically everything from me. I am their mother. THOSE kind of people. I got babies. Two of them in two years. (Possible addict behavior)”

Alisan Porter goes on to say the struggle is still very real, but the positives in her life these days far outweigh the negatives, and so she fights to remain a sober, responsible mom and wife–and now, a singing star, too.

Alisan Porter chose Christina Aguilera as her coach–she got to choose from four sensational names in the music industry–and will appear again on The Voice when the battle rounds begin.

Did you see Curly Sue back in the early 1990s? Would you have even recognized Alisan Porter had her story not been splashed all over TV and in the media?

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