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Ellise Mariana Gitas, known professionally as Ellise, and often nicknamed Lisey, is a rising singer-songwriter and actress. She has four released extended plays, two studio albums, a live album, and a string of singles and collaborations released. She has also released several music videos, a virtual live performance, and gathered a constantly expanding fan following.
Early Life
Ellise was born in Danville, California, United States on September 10th, 1998. She realized her love for music early on in her life, and at the age of 14, she made it on The X Factor.[1] At the age of 16, she graduated high school early, and moved to Los Angeles.[2] She grew up with her brother, Geno Gitas, who then went on to also pursue a career in music.
Family Life
She grew up in Danville, California, located in the Bay Area, before moving to Los Angeles. Her mother, Luna, immigrated to the United States at fifteen years old.
Career
2016: Break Down and Dominoes
Ellise wrote her first ever released single, Break Down, with Chris Seefried in 2016. After filming the process of production for an episode of UNCHARTED, the single was released undistributed via SoundCloud on March 23rd, 2016.
Ellise wrote and released her second official single in 2016. Dominoes. The song was released on June 28, 2016 on many major distribution platforms including Spotify and YouTube Music. The music video was published on July 7th, 2016. It premiered on live television. The video was directed by Paul Boyd and included some of her friends Malia Pyles, Peyton Ackerman, Joey Birlim, Tayler Holder, Kelianne Stankaus and Jordan Tortorello. The single was intended to be the first track from her now scrapped Debut Extended Play.
In 2018, Ellise decided to leave the label which released Dominoes, Grange Records. During this, she removed Dominoes from all platforms and made the music video private. However, her Facebook post of the video remains public.[3]
2018: Early Singles
After Ellise's departure with her old label, she decided to release her music independent from then on. Her first official release after Dominoes was Love Made Me Do It. The song released on February 5th, 2018, shortly followed by a music video. Five months later, on August 3rd, 2018, Ellise released her second official single, Pinky Promise. As her third official release, Fight! was released on September 10th. Each of these songs demonstrated another way Ellise could twist and distort pop music to a darker sound, as her sound began to take shape.
2018: Can You Keep a Secret?
Ellise's first official non-single release was Can You Keep a Secret?, a Halloween extended play themed around horror movies, using music boxes and pulsing bass hits throughout. Preceded by the release of Ghost as a SoundCloud exclusive single, the debut extended play was released on October 12th, 2018 to celebrate Halloween. The EP included four tracks, including one of the same title. The opening track, 911, proceeded to trend. She followed it up with the standalone single Keep It to Myself in early 2019, and an accompanying music video.
2019: Under My Bed
In October of 2019, she released another Halloween EP, named Under My Bed, each song having a music video, telling a story. The EP was themed after hell and heaven, and was preceded by the SoundCloud single Devil on My Shoulder during mid 2019. She later removed the videos in July of 2020, but all of the music videos later resurfaced.
2021: Chaotic & Letting the Wolf In
In 2021, she entered a new era, having finished her first studio album, titled Chaotic, after spending most of 2020 working on it. She also signed to EMPIRE. On February 5th, 2021, she released the album's first single, Bubblegum Brain, a bright pop song with contrastingly dark lyrics and a vibrant aesthetic, with a music video for it, featuring Shea Couleé. The next single, Feeling Something Bad... was released on March 12th, Ellise and thye album's executive producer, Micah Gordon, experimenting with vocal pitching and vocoders to great effect. The song was released with a music video, continuing the story of Bubblegum Brain's video. Following this, on April 23rd, the album's third and last single was released. This was Over Breakfast, a stripped back acoustic song, featuring only Ellise mournfully calling for one last night with her soon-to-be-ex, accompanied by only a guitar. On May 14th, the album itself was released, featuring a variety of sad, orchestral, dramatic, and empowering tracks. Not long after, the album had a virtual live show to promote it. She was then featured on the title track for Iggy Azalea's third studio album, "End Of An Era". Not long after the release of the collab, Ellise released the Bruises music video, which had been teased multiple times on Ellise's social medias. On September 10th, 2021, released the Chaotic Virtual Live Show as a live album as a surprise for her birthday.
After the release of Chaotic, Ellise began working on more music, for a Halloween themed extended play. This later developed into her third Halloween EP, and was released as Letting the Wolf In on October 15th, 2021, marking her third album of the year. The project used fairytales and all things dark, twisted, and terrible as recurring motifs throughout, over a soundscape reminiscent of her previous work's, but more intricate and evolved. One track from it, Soul Sucker, received a remix featuring Mothica and DeathbyRomy, alongside a music video.
2022 - 2023: More singles & Over Her Dead Body
Ellise spent much of 2022 working on her 4th EP and a next album, taking on a new sound. She left EMPIRE, signing to Inertia. On October 28th, 2022, she released the first single of this new era - Black Balloons, a sparkling dark anthem about a twisted birthday party. She followed it up with Did It Hurt?, the second single from the project, an emotional track oscillating between ethereal harps and intense synths. It was followed by the powerful and sassy brokenboys&bitterbitches in 2023, before the release of explosive collaborations Pretty in the Dark and Pity Party (with Ashley Sienna and Neoni respectively). In October, Ellise returned to her Halloween tradition, and brought the grimy and murderous Halloween EP Over Her Dead Body to the table, a parallel to her first Halloween EP Can You Keep a Secret? five years before, from the perspective of the villain rather than the victim. To close the year, on December 8th she released another single, She Ruins Everything. Marking perhaps her most vulnerable song to date, the music video for it parallels Ellise's younger more hopeful self to herself now in a heartbreaking depiction of lost dreams. She followed it up in March 2024 with another single, the high energy DOLLFACE with Ashley Sienna, a punchy track about self affirmation.
2024 - 2025: PRETTY EVIL
In late 2024, Ellise geared up to at last release her sophomore album, after four years working on it. The first single from it, the alluring and powerful track bite was released in late 2024, with a music video teasing the album's name - PRETTY EVIL. She followed the track up with dead2me, a danceable pop track about revenge. It was followed not long after by the final single from the album - valentine, released on its titular day; a sordid reflection on a relationship where she was cheated on, with airy production. The album itself was at last released on March 28th 2025, with 12 tracks - opening with PRETTY, and closing with EVIL, a split title track, to show the two sides of her feelings about all that had happened. The tracks between include upbeat retro-inspired pop beats, and dramatic ruminations on her feelings, tracking through the stages of grief over the relationship to take the listener through her emotional journey in her most well produced and most vocally challenging album to date. However, the era was not over; on June 6th, Ellise released KILL4ME, and teased a deluxe for the project. It was later released with three more new songs.
2026 - Sexxxtapes
Throughout late 2025, Ellise began to tease a new song - Sexxxtapes, an electronically influenced sparkling track about taking comfort in physical memories of her ex-boyfriend. It was released in January 2026 with a music video recounting its story, showing Ellise both haunted by the echo of her ex and artistic recreations of the very experiences she took comfort in. This came with the announcement that the song would be part of a new extended play (of the same title), to be released later in 2026.
Relationships
To respect Ellise's privacy, the wiki has decided to ignore Ellise's relationship histories. The only direct relation to Ellise that will have a page on the wiki is lilspirit, her brother, as they have collaborated on music together.
An agreement has been made with Ellise as to privacy of her information, and any information may be removed or altered here at her request.
Further Reading
See the full gallery. For her tattoos, see tattoos gallery. For a complete list of her released discography, see discography. For a complete list of her music videos, see Music Videos. For a list of her use of logos throughout her artistic career, see her logos.
Trivia
- According to Ellise, one name for her fanbase is the "Chaotic Hoes".
- In 2016, she stated in an interview, that if she could collaborate with any artist, it would be Shawn Mendes.[4]
- She has also stated later that she would love to make a song with Ariana Grande, or Ashnikko.[5]
- Her zodiac sign is Virgo.
- She was born and raised in Danville, California, but just like her mother, she moved to Los Angeles at the age of 16 to pursue a career in music.
- Her mother, Luna, was 15 years old when she was brought to the United States from Iraq.
- Her father is Italian, Greek, and half Lebanese,[6] while her mother is Assyrian, with possibly Syrian, Iraqi and Jordanian roots.[7]
- Her favorite song by Lilspirit is Can't Sleep.
- She graduated from high school early at the age of 16.
- Ellise is a fan of Adele.
- She has also said her biggest inspirations are Frank Ocean, Lana Del Rey, Charli XCX, and Lorde.[8]
- In 2009, she sang Kelly Clarkson's Because of You during her school's "Back to School Night". She was in grade 4 at the time.
- In school, she was on the choir team and sung at local competitions. Later, she also started performing at restaurants and participated in group concerts before she moved to Los Angeles.
- Ellise is a trained pianist and can also play the guitar.
- Prior to her career as a musician, she had a YouTube channel to which she used to upload cover videos.
- She hails from a family of musicians, her father can play the piano, and her younger brother was one of her main producers.
- Her first song, Break Down, was directed towards her mother. She worked with a record producer, Chris Seefried, at that time.
- In 2013, she competed on the The X Factor.
- During an interview with MaximoTV, Ellise stated she would love to win "Breakout Artist" if she were to win any Grammy Award.[9]
- She is allergic to penicillin and pineapples.[10]
- Her favourite foods are "corn (not on the cob), white rice with soy sauce, and chocolate lava cake."[10]
- She has described her style of music as "pop, but pop with a very dark edge, and I'm really focused lyrically, so it's pop but it kinda has some darker lyrics, just kinda dark pop."[11]
- Ellise is left-handed.
References
- ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XqJxYQzRTvE
- ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OqosZ_3c9ko
- ↑ https://www.facebook.com/officialellise/videos/1766054023641639/
- ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OqosZ_3c9ko
- ↑
- ↑ https://youtu.be/lSzVYfYItxg?si=V2j3Gh9Eh9cwOaEb&t=1871
- ↑ https://ethnicelebs.com/elisse-gitas
- ↑ 2/24/2021 Reddit AMA#QnA
- ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3z2pE7IQaoA
- ↑ 10.0 10.1 https://americansongwriter.com/ellise-clings-to-a-doomed-crush-in-her-sticky-new-single-feeling-something-bad/
- ↑ https://youtu.be/Uo4hxCIXP7I?t=30
