The Untold Truth Of Shay Mitchell

This article discusses postpartum depression, prenatal depression, and racist bullying. 

Shay Mitchell is not just an accomplished actor, but also a model, influencer, producer, writer, philanthropist, and entrepreneur — a true multi-hyphenate who can do it all. She is also a mother of two children who has been unabashedly and inspirationally outspoken about her experiences with motherhood, pregnancy, miscarriage, and more. "I can't just do acting. I can't just be an entrepreneur. I can't just be on social media," she once told Romper. "There's so many things I want to do. Why can't I do it? I have one life, as me right now. I could come back as something else, but I have to do everything that I want to do."

Mitchell began her career with modeling jobs, then quickly transitioned to acting. In 2010, she broke out with her starring role as Emily Fields on the show "Pretty Little Liars." She then went on to appear in series such as "You" and "Dollface," and movies such as "Mother's Day" and "The Possession of Hannah Grace." At the same time, Mitchell grew her online brand to become a popular lifestyle guru and an entrepreneur. She has done a big makeup collaboration, co-written a book, and worked on behalf of charities — plus much more. "You don't have to stay in a box. Just because you started off in one industry doesn't mean you can't jump into another one," she said in an interview with Self. That sentiment certainly rings true in the untold truth of Shay Mitchell.

Shay Mitchell is from a mixed-race family — her mother is Filipina and her father is white. However, her heritage was not always easy for her to embrace. Speaking to Self she recalled growing up in a mostly Caucasian area of Vancouver. As the sole person who looked like her at school, she was sometimes ostracized for being different. "My mom would get derogatory remarks like, 'Are you the cleaning lady? Are you the nanny?' And she was like, 'No, but what is your issue if I was?'," Mitchell said in a Women's Health interview. "In school, I was bullied — I'd get questions like, 'Are you going to go clean the bathrooms?'"

Unsurprisingly, these experiences did not inspire self-confidence in a young Mitchell and by high school, she was doing her best to assimilate. According to an interview with Elle Canada, Mitchell began dying her hair blonde and wearing blue or green contacts to look more like her white classmates during this time period. "I was so uncomfortable being Filipino," she told Cosmopolitan. Nowadays, the star has nothing but pride in her ethnicity, and she has made it a point to pass on Filipino culture to her children. "Right now, pancit is [daughter Atlas's] favorite food," she told Buzzfeed in May 2022. "I like seeing her enjoy that as much as I do. We also have my aunts come to the house and make lumpia, and it's fun to be able to see her ... experiencing that."

"Pretty Little Liars" lasted for seven seasons, spawned multiple spin-offs, and launched its four main stars to fame — none of which could have happened without the show's large, passionate, and vocal fanbase. But even though Lucy Hale ("Aria"), Troian Bellisario ("Spencer"), and Ashley Benson ("Hanna") have legions of fans themselves, all three of them agree that Shay Mitchell ("Emily") had the most intense fandom resulting from the show. In an Entertainment Weekly video interview, the cast joked about how Mitchell's fans often went so far as to tattoo her face on their bodies. "Just always traveling to different places, you meet all the fans and they're always so amazing and supportive," the actor said in the video.

In addition to possibly inking themselves with her visage, Mitchell's fans have collectively taken on the name, "Mitchies," which the actor has embraced. In one interview with Elle Canada, she discussed being approached by rabid fans everywhere from New Jersey to a tiny Irish island. Sadly, not all of her fan encounters have been positive, as Mitchell's personal space is not always respected when out in public. "I was walking in a grocery store and someone jumped on my back — and I knew the second she yelled, 'It's Emily Fields', it was a fan," she said in an interview with Galore Magazine (via OK!). "I guess being in someone's living room once a week on the TV makes them feel a little TOO comfortable."

"Pretty Little Liars" and "You" are both great shows, but cheerful comedies they are not. That is partially what drew Shay Mitchell to her next big series, "Dollface," a Hulu comedy co-starring Kat Dennings and Brenda Song. "I was excited because it was a comedy role and it was a lot more lighthearted [than 'YOU']," she told Entertainment Weekly of her role as Stella Cole. "They are very different characters. Aesthetically you can see a similarity but when you get to know Stella, she's really a wild spirit and a complete 180 from Peach. It was fun to go from that to this."

As a character, Stella was well-rounded in that she was the easy-going, fun one in the friend group, but also evolved into a successful businesswoman with a good head on her shoulders. For Mitchell, it is the character with whom she has most identified. "I think Stella was basically me in my single years," she admitted to Buzzfeed. "Dollface" ran for two seasons between 2019 and 2022, and Mitchell was able to prove that her comedic abilities match her serious acting chops. The show suffered a huge gap between the first and second seasons due to COVID-19. It was canceled in 2022 following the delay. 

Over the years, Shay Mitchell has utilized her acting fame to become a successful influencer and lifestyle guru. Focusing on topics such as travel, beauty, wellness, cooking, and motherhood, she has maintained a presence across many different social networking sites. Perhaps understandably, she's inferred that she is inspired by the queen of actors-turned-lifestyle-gurus, Gwyneth Paltrow – though Mitchell's vibe is much more girl-next-door than Goop. "It was important for me to have a brand that was Shay Mitchell, so you got to know me," she told Cosmopolitan of differentiating herself from her famous characters.

One of Mitchell's first big forays into influencer territory was YouTube, where she has playlists for her "Shaycation!" travel vlogs, amongst other content. As of September 2022, she had not posted on YouTube for almost a year. Regardless, her videos have amassed nearly 250 million views to date. Her decrease in posting content on YouTube has coincided with an increased focus on Tik Tok, where she has over 7 million followers, and Instagram, where she has a whopping 34 million followers, at the time of writing. Though she has a massive following, Mitchell has said she posts only what she wants to post and not what she thinks will hit with fans. "I actually couldn't give a s*** about Instagram likes," she told Elle in 2019. "I'm very passionate about that. I think you should post what you love, not what you think other people want to see."

In recent years, many celebrities have experienced postpartum depression and discussed it in the media, including (but not limited to) Alanis Morissette, Chrissy Teigen, and Brooke Shields. It is more of a rarity, however, for famous women to discuss their mental health struggles during pregnancy. This is the reason why Shay Mitchell decided to be so open about her own issues with prenatal depression while pregnant with her first child, Atlas. "I hadn't heard much about it, which is why I kind of went on a whole thing speaking about my experience. I wanted people to feel like they weren't 'crazy,' like they weren't alone if they weren't feeling like a glorious goddess during their pregnancy," she told Buzzfeed. "It's okay to actually not feel amazing. That doesn't mean that you're not grateful to be pregnant — I am extremely grateful."

According to Beaumont Health, prenatal depression describes the experience of depression during pregnancy, and though it is not as commonly discussed, it is experienced by a fair share of women. In fact, per the CDC, the number of women experiencing depression at the time of delivery was seven times higher in 2015 compared to 2000. "Feeling that I was alone in my depression compounded my state of mind ... pregnancy can be a hard time, especially if you're having to hide it," Mitchell said of her first pregnancy, which she hid until the six-month mark due to her previous experience with miscarriage, per Babe Hatch.

If you or someone you know needs help with mental health, please contact the Crisis Text Line by texting HOME to 741741, call the National Alliance on Mental Illness helpline at 1-800-950-NAMI (6264), or visit the National Institute of Mental Health website.

Because Shay Mitchell shares so much of her life on social media, she is at times on the receiving end of unfair attacks on her choices based upon the small snippets the public gets to see. And like so many female celebrities with young children, Mitchell has fallen victim to people who want to critique her for her parenting choices. These mommy shamers don't phase Mitchell, and they have not stopped her from sharing her kids and life. "It's definitely something that you have to ask yourself on a daily basis, or at least for us. We're like, 'Hey, is this OK?'," she told She Knows. "There are, of course, some personal moments that we don't need to share with everybody, and that we'll save just for us. But there's also so many moments that I do want to put out there."

Mitchell's first taste of mom shaming came when she posted evidence of her and her partner, Matte Babel, attending Drake's birthday party, three weeks after the birth of their daughter Atlas. While she once told Vogue that she was bothered by peoples' quick rush to judgment and unfair assessments, she seemed more annoyed for others than for herself when she spoke about it a year later with Romper. "It bothered me to think of the other moms seeing that and feeling like, 'Oh my gosh, is that not appropriate? Should I not be going out after?' No. You should do whatever you feel like doing," she said.

According to her LinkedIn profile, Shay Mitchell started her production company, Amore & Vita Productions, in 2017. While the company did not get much off the ground in its first few years, its first show has since become a bonafide hit. The company produces "The Cleaning Lady," a Fox crime drama based upon the Argentinian series, "La chica que limpia." It premiered in 2022 and was renewed for a second season that same year. 

Mitchell is credited as an executive producer on "The Cleaning Lady," and interviews have made it clear that she has been involved since the show's American inception. "After finishing the (original) series, I wanted to take that concept but explore topics of privilege and exploitation in the U.S. as it pertains to immigrants," she said in a Variety interview. "Finding Miranda [Kwok] and discussing the concept for the show was awesome. I also knew that I wanted a diverse cast that provided prominent roles for people who are often underrepresented." In the interview, Mitchell also explained that one reason she responded to the show's premise was that some of her own family members with advanced degrees have had to work as cleaning ladies or nannies after emigrating to North America for a better life, much like the show's protagonist.

According to Celebrity Net Worth, as of 2022, Shay Mitchell was estimated to be worth a cool $6 million and, with all of her ventures, that number is sure to keep climbing. She owns a gorgeous 1920s home in Los Angeles, which was already beautiful when it was featured in Architectural Digest in 2020, but became even more elevated when HGTV star Leanne Ford gave it a makeover a year later. If her social media is any indication, Mitchell may spend a chunk of her money on exciting vacations and to-die-for fashions — though, as an influencer, a lot of it could likely be free. 

How exactly did she make her money? While we don't know exact details, much of Mitchell's net worth likely comes from her acting career, which has included 160 episodes of "Pretty Little Liars," 20 episodes of "Dollface," and 6 episodes each of "You" and "Trese," along with a dozen or so other projects. She also has her travel brand, Béis, and an alcoholic seltzer water brand called Onda, per Forbes. Then there are her production, modeling, and endorsement deals, which have included everything from Biore to the health and fitness app, Openfit. If that were not enough, she has also had collaborations with Smashbox makeup and even co-authored a novel, "Bliss," in 2015 with her best friend, Michaela Blaney.