Rachel Cantu Biography

Rise to Stardom

Rachel Cantu joined YouTube in May 2015 and posted her first video on September 7, 2015, shortly before turning 13. In the video, she talked about wanting to be a YouTuber for a long time and being stressed about what to post considering that it might haunt her if she ever got popular. She also talked about making videos about the challenges of living with scoliosis to be helpful to others. However, she assured her viewers that she would also be posting other fun content, and not just about her physical condition.

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In the following months, she posted Q&A’s about scoliosis, vlogged about her diagnosis and treatment, and also shared fashion ideas to go with a back brace. She gradually shifted more towards makeup, beauty, fashion, and shopping content one year into her YouTube career. She reached 10k subscribers by March 2017 and it took her just a couple of months to cross 100k, following which she hosted a giveaway for her fans. By that time, she was already receiving emails for sponsorship deals from brands. In June 2017, she collaborated with “muser” Matthew RC Taylor for a 5-minute makeup challenge and featured Instagram star Madison Ashleigh on a makeup video. She usually combines makeup with “Get Ready With Me” videos in which she talks about different things in her life.

Struggles with Scoliosis

Rachel Cantu suffers from scoliosis and had originally made her YouTube channel to share tips and guidance about the condition with others. She was in the fifth grade when she was told to get herself checked by nurses after a routine checkup. She was subsequently diagnosed with the condition following an X-ray scan. She started wearing a brace to correct the curvature when she was in the sixth grade and needed to wear it for 20 hours a day for three to four years. She always expressed her unwillingness to have surgery to insert metal rods in her spine, but also admitted that the curvature of her spine increased as she did not wear her brace regularly or long enough. She did physical therapy to reduce the curvature in early 2017, which helped her contain it at the end of her growth spurt. Her older sister Anna also has scoliosis, but she did not need to wear braces as it was not too serious.

Mental Health Issues

Apart from scoliosis, Rachel Cantu has also opened up about dealing with mental health issues on her YouTube channel. Even before her scoliosis diagnosis, she felt depressed in elementary school and even had to go through therapy for inflicting self-harm. Scoliosis diagnosis only made things worse and she started suffering a lot from anxiety and depression in high school. She had to take medications and went through therapy. In late 2020, she took a job thinking that it would distract her “in a positive way” and teach her to tackle unpleasant situations, but it had the opposite effect as her anxiety grew, forcing her to leave the job after two weeks. She talked about it in a video to validate feelings of her fans who might be suffering from similar issues.

Family & Personal Life

Rachel Cantu was born on October 16, 2002, in Dallas, Texas, United States. She is half-Mexican and half-Caucasian. She has an older sister named Anna and a younger sister named Cara. Rachel is the most athletic one among her siblings. While she was inspired by Anna to do makeup, Anna was inspired by her to become a YouTuber and has 142k subscribers. She featured her sisters in a video in April 2017 and posted a road trip vlog with her family in July. She graduated from school in November 2021. She can speak a little bit of Spanish. Shortly after joining YouTube, she had uploaded a cover of the song “Hello” by Adele, filmed in her backyard, which she later made private.