Coco Jones Spills the Tea on What Really Went Down with Her Career

By Andréa Butler

Let It Shine should have been Coco Jones‘s big break — and she high-key thought it was.

As our spring 2015 cover girl, the then 17-year-old even let us in on her upcoming post-high school graduation plans to leave her hometown in Tennessee and head to L.A. “I’ll get a lot more into the acting side and especially my music ’cause that’s my number one,” she told us.

But Coco’s come up was cut short. And we weren’t the only ones wondering what really went down. After this tweet was shared a few days ago, Coco popped back on our TLs like:

Obvi, the answer was yes, and last weekend, in a YouTube Live (which y’all can peep below), Coco came through with the the tea, explaining how there was supposed to be a Let It Shine sequel, a new TV show, and a full album — and each one fell through.

She was told her look wasn’t marketable enough, the songs she wrote weren’t sellable enough, and that no one really knew what to do with her. “I’m watching this stuff go slower and slower and lower and lower until it feels like — trauma,” she says in the YouTube video.

Watch the full story here:

Now 22, ya’ girl is back at work on her own music. She also has two new movies coming out this year — a Halloween one for Netflix (Vampires vs The Bronx), which drops October 2, and a Christmas movie (White Elephant).

“It’s been a long journey, and I still got a ways to go, but I’m gonna get there,” she says in the video.

And that’s on period.

Main Image: @cocojones/Instagram

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Quarterly print teen magazine for Black girls ages 13 to 19. Covering The Black Girl's Mainstream™