Shanel Cheatham

Shanel Cheatham was born on January 4th 2003 in Manhattan, New York City. She is of African American and Filipino descent. Growing up in The Big Apple with an artist/poet father and supportive mother, Shanel has always been engaged and surrounded by the arts and started performing as a dancer at a local dance studio at age 6. She became serious about acting at age 13, and began to pursue it with her twin sister Janel Cheatham. The next year she graduated with honors from a public school for dance, competed in a beauty pageant where she placed 1st runner up, and filmed her first starring role in the independent film American Wisper (2020).