Isabella Henao, a Valencia 21-year-old who’s sung in one capacity or another since she was a little girl, recently showed off her talents on the HBO docu-comedy series “The Rehearsal.” Then, she caught the attention of late-night talk show host Jimmy Kimmel and made an appearance on “Jimmy Kimmel Live!”
Now Henao’s phone won’t stop ringing.
While she’s been thrilled with the attention, she can’t lie — it’s also been a little overwhelming.
“I actually ended up deleting my social media apps,” Henao said in a telephone interview. “It was so intense. People were DMing me. I mean, my DMs are insane right now.”
She said her mom tells people that she was born singing. Her mom sang to her as a baby, and Henao, according to what her mom tells her, would try to imitate the notes — she couldn’t sing the words, she said, because, obviously, she couldn’t talk.
Henao’s mom, Carolina Henao, spoke about those early years.
“You know how she screams sometimes when she sings?” she said during a separate telephone interview. “That was, like, from when she was a baby. I got kicked out of restaurants. I got kicked out of church. She was so loud.”
But her parents encouraged her to sing. Henao’s mom sang in the home because it brought her comfort. The family regularly plays music in the house. It might’ve been only natural for Henao to sing, too.
According to Henao’s mom, her daughter’s singing brought vitality to the home.
“The whole house comes to life,” she said. “She’s loud, she’s jumping, she’s laughing, singing; she’s playing the piano. And since she was little, that’s been the case.”
Henao grew up singing in church. She sang in choirs during elementary school and middle school. Up to that point, singing was something she simply loved to do.
In eighth grade, however, she became more serious about it. She got a singing coach. In high school, singing became a goal for the first time. She really wanted to be a part of Valencia High School choir’s Two N’ Four vocal jazz ensemble.
“That was what changed everything,” Henao said. “It was pretty much the turning point, because I really wanted to be in that jazz choir. And because of that — my ambition to be in it — I just kept going and going until I got in.”
Henao didn’t get in until her senior year.
And while so many people are now praising her for her talent — telling her she has a gift — she’s flattered, she said, but she doesn’t think that’s everything.
“I wouldn’t say that’s everything because I put in crazy practice hours,” she said. “Like, I’m just insane.”
Her mom spoke about her daughter’s work ethic. In fact, it’s what she thought about when “The Rehearsal” aired, and what she thought about when her daughter was on “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” and success turned her daughter’s world upside down.
Henao’s mom talked about the many challenges her daughter faced over the years and how she had to work so hard to overcome them. The first language she spoke at home, for example, was Spanish, which created obstacles in the singing world. But her daughter’s determination and perseverance got her through it all. It made Henao’s mom emotional just to speak about it.
“She works like an athlete — like the same discipline that an athlete needs to succeed,” her mother said. “With all my heart, this kid deserves it. She has worked so hard. I see her rehearsing for countless hours. Her dedication to music is beyond anything I’ve seen.”
Henao graduated high school in 2021. It was a tough time, Henao said, due to the COVID-19 pandemic. However, she got to sing quite a bit. While most everything was shut down and so many people were at home, Henao said she received “essential worker” status because she went out and sang for seniors at senior homes.
That work came via a jazz piano teacher who, she said, played piano at senior homes. He’d connected with Henao and asked if she’d lend her voice.
“He was like, ‘Hey, I’m looking for a singer to come sing at senior homes with me,’” Henao said. “He’s like, ‘It’s paid, it’s super nice. I was wondering if you wanted to come in for a gig.’ And I was like, ‘Yeah, for sure.’ And so, I came in for one gig, and after that, he started bringing me on a case-by-case basis, because some senior homes are like, ‘Yeah, we like the piano, but we want a singer, also.’”
Henao said she performed in many different senior homes, singing classic jazz standards like “Route 66” and “Autumn Leaves.”
Asked how she came upon HBO’s “The Rehearsal,” she couldn’t share much. She’d signed an NDA (non-disclosure agreement) and couldn’t talk about it. However, similar to the way she struggled, strived and worked to get into Valencia High’s Two N’ Four vocal jazz ensemble, she tried and failed before getting the HBO gig.
At 10 years old, she auditioned for the TV talent show “America’s Got Talent.” She didn’t make it on the show, but she learned as much as she could about the auditioning process and about the business.
“There was somebody who’d been on the show a few times,” Henao said, “who pulled my mom and me aside, and he was like, ‘Hey, I’m just letting you know, you’re extremely gifted, but if you’re going to actually get on the show, here’s what to look out for.’”
Henao picked up many tips that she later used to secure the singing gig on “The Rehearsal,” in which she took part in a fake singing contest called “Wings of Voice” and won first-place honors.
Almost immediately after her episode aired, she got invited to be on “Jimmy Kimmel Live!”
“Coming from doing small gigs where I have to manage everything myself, it was so crazy to have other people handle that process for me,” she said of the experience. “It was so smooth. And I mean, honestly, when I was really little, I used to watch Kimmel all the time, and so, the fact that they wanted to bring me on, I was just like, ‘Wait, are you kidding? Like, is this real?’ I didn’t believe it was actually happening.”
Since then, other job offers have been coming in steadily. Henao couldn’t say much about the work, as it’s all still in the works, but between that and friends and family calling her, former teachers posting about her and tagging her on social media, and a Cracked.com article about her, her life has gotten “crazy.”
She didn’t necessarily mean “crazy” in a bad way.
“But I definitely was, like, freaking out,” she said. “And then I’m like, ‘OK, well, I really need to take a step back and figure out why this is making me so anxious.’ People say, ‘Oh, so many eyes are going to be on you,’ but you can’t really comprehend it until it happens.”
Henao is currently studying musical theater at Utah Valley University in Orem, Utah. She’s what’s called a triple threat — she sings, dances and acts, though singing, she said, is what she ultimately wants to do.
She said her graduation date has been pushed back due to paying gigs she’s taken. She’s currently on track to finish in 2027, unless, she added, other singing jobs delay that date even further.
And while that and all the attention she’s getting is stressful, there’s no doubt that it’s also very exciting.
“It’s literally a dream come true,” Henao said. “I never thought I would ever be able to do something like this.”
