Willa Ford Biography:
Willa Ford was born on January 22, 1981 in Ruskin, Florida. She began receiving formal training in opera when she was very young, and at the age of 8, was already performing with the Tampa Bay Children's Choir. She became a part of the Children's Performing Arts Troupe Entertainment Revue at the age of 11, whom she got to work with at shows held in Walt Disney World Resort and Busch Gardens. A graduate of East Bay High School, where she finished with a GPA of 4.25, Ford moved to Los Angeles after a brief stint with a musical group called, FLA. She received a record deal with MCA records, but decided to come out under the pseudonym Mandah. Her tie-up with MCA records led her to release her first song, "Lullaby," and to become an opening act for the popular boyband, Backstreet Boys. Shortly therafter, Ford reverted back to her real name, but was dropped by MCA after gaining some negative publicity. Her first album, Willa Was Here, was released under Lava/Atlantic records, with the single "I Wanna Be Bad" reaching #56 on the Billboard 200 album chart. Her second album, supposedly entitled Porn Poetry, was never released due to disagreements regarding the album's name. Ford continued to work with her sexy image and even posed nude for the March 2006 issue of Playboy magazine.
Ford appeared as a contestant on the third season of Dancing with the Stars, where she was paired with dancer
Maksim Chmerkovskiy . They were eliminated after only five weeks of competing, but when
Sara Evans decided to leave the show for personal reasons, ABC asked Ford to come back. However, she declined the invitation, and only returned to the show during the finale.