Obama Girl talks about growing up in Pennsylvania.
Ettinger: I’m from a small town called Hazelton, Pennsylvania. I was born there, but I grew up in a bunch of different states. My dad was in the army, so I guess I’m an army brat, without the brat. But I think, for me, growing up in a town like Hazelton, it was very quiet. It’s a nice place to raise your family, and, I think, that’s the best part about it, just having a small town and being surrounded by your grandparents and your cousins. But I was in high school, I couldn’t wait to get out and get to the big city. I knew exactly what I wanted to do from a very young age. When I was really young, I wanted to be Strawberry Shortcake, but that never happened. But, I guess, I think it was when I hit about 13, I knew I wanted to go to New York to be a fashion designer and be in entertainment, whether it be modeling, acting, dancing, and that’s exactly what I did. I got accepted to the Fashion Institute of Technology, and I studied Fashion Design there for a few years. While in school is when I started getting approached in the street to do different modeling jobs, small acting gigs, and it all kind of snowballed from there, and then upon graduation of college is when I did modeling and acting full time, as well as started singing.