Willa Ford

Amanda Lee Williford (born January 22, 1981), known by her stage name Willa Ford, is an American television personality, film actress, dancer, model, and former singer and songwriter.

In 1999, the 18-year-old Ford started performing under the stage name Mandah and was signed to MCA.

Ford was later dropped from MCA and signed by Atlantic Records.

Atlantic placed one of Ford's songs, "Lullaby," on the soundtrack for Pokémon: The First Movie.

Ford changed her stage name from Mandah to Willa Ford to avoid confusion with Mandy Moore.

In 2000, she was one of the opening acts on the Backstreet Boys' "Into the Millennium" tour.

She released her debut album, Willa Was Here, in 2001.

In 2001, Ford signed on to a new label, Lava Atlantic Records, while on a mall tour for Nautica Kids.

Ford wrote most of her own lyrics and served as executive producer for most of her first album.

On July 17, 2001, she released Willa Was Here.

The album included the single "I Wanna Be Bad" which featured rapper Royce da 5'9". Willa Was Here reached 56 on the Billboard 200 and sold approximately 200,000 copies. Ford went on to release a second single from the album, "Did Ya' Understand That," which was released on September 11, 2001, failed to garner much attention. She would later explain that "Everything that happened that day froze; the world stood still, as it should have.

My second single didn’t do well because anything that launched that day kind of got canned." "Ooh Ooh" was released as a promotional single, but also failed to find success.

Ford was a spokesperson for Pantene Pro-V's ProVoice campaign while promoting the album.

She also appeared in Uncle Kracker's video for "In A Little While."

Ford also went on to guest-host MTV's TRL and Say What Karaoke, which led to a hosting contract with Viacom.

Ford hosted the MTV reality shows The Morning After and I Bet You Will.

In 2001, Ford also co-wrote and recorded a duet with South Korean pop star Park Ji-yoon.

The song, titled "Nastified," appeared on Park's fifth album, Man. She was also part of an ad campaign for Six Flags.

In 2002, Ford appeared in an episode of the short-lived television sitcom Raising Dad, playing a bully named Edie.

In 2003, Ford released a song titled "A Toast to Men."

The song, which featured guest rapper Lady May, was featured in daytime promotional ads for soap operas.

The single came from her unreleased second album Sexysexobsessive, which was previously titled Porn Poetry.

The title track, "Sexysexobsessive," was to be the second single, but it was only released through Ford's official website.

In the performance, she revealed her first solo song since 2003, "Back Back Back."

From 2005 to 2006, she appeared as a guest doll in Pussycat Dolls' show at the club in Las Vegas.

In 2005, Ford hosted the first season of the reality show The Ultimate Fighter on Spike TV.

After the show's finale, Ford was contracted as a summer's guest doll performer for the Las Vegas shows of The Pussycat Dolls.

Ford was later featured as the June celebrity on FHM's 2005 pin-up calendar.

In early 2006, Ford played as one of the four celebrity quarterbacks for the Lingerie Bowl, which was shown during the half-time of Super Bowl XL.

Later that year, she was featured in a nude pictorial in the March 2006 issue of Playboy.

Ford also has appeared in movies such as Friday the 13th (2009), hosted several reality television shows, posed for Playboy and competed on ABC's Dancing with the Stars.

Ford was raised in Ruskin, Florida.

She began singing with the Tampa Bay Children's Choir at age eight.

At age 11, she started singing with the Tampa-based children's performing arts troupe, Entertainment Revue.

She attended East Bay High School in Gibsonton, Florida.

In 2010, she released the first song since 2003 "All This Time" online, collaborated with Riley Smith.

In 2011, Ford resumed her music career with a performance at The Viper Room in LA.

In 2014, she was featured in the song "Rock Tonight" by Willa Ford, Eve Nelson and Ray Cervenka.

She would state that after her music didn't garner as much success as hoped for, she "really took a step back because I felt like I wasn't doing what I was supposed to be at the time."

"I know that sounds crazy, but it was the perfect storm, and I walked away," as she would go on to try out many different careers.