[Kelianne](https://www.instagram.com/keliannestankus/?hl=en) is multi-hyphenate who’s talented at many things… and now she’s bringing that same energy into the music industry. Born and raised in Riverside, 70 miles outside of Los Angeles, Kelianne started out as a gymnast, previously a member of the U.S. National Acrobatic Gymnastics Team and even competing in the World Championships.
She states, “I miss the competing and the performance side of it, but that intense training was a lot. \[laughs\] I don’t miss that, but I miss competing a lot.”
Soon after, she’d find her niche in the entertainment industry and online, taking over social media platforms while displaying her fun, loving personality and undeniable beauty. That hunger, passion, and resilience to get her through gymnastics is the same one that she hopes to inspire the masses with, especially touching young females all around the world who look up to Kelianne.
Currently boasting a huge following with well over 12 million fans and over 400 million views on all her videos, Kelianne is excited as ever to finally be releasing her own original music. First up is a single called “Boys,” which she reveals “is a tongue and cheek anthem that everyone will want to sing and bop their head to.” This follows her previous release, a Christmas song called “It Feels Like Christmas” with her best friends Nate Wyatt and Tayler Holder.
And if you follow Kelianne in any capacity, you’re probably aware of her relationship with fiancé [Chase Mattson](https://www.instagram.com/chasemattson/?hl=en), as the two lovebirds are currently in the process of planning their dream wedding. The couple recently graced the cover of Brides Magazine as well.
Flaunt caught up with Kelianne via Instagram Live, who was posted in North Hollywood. Read below as we discuss her roots, what she learned from gymnastics, the reality of training, moving to Los Angeles, the journey to 10 million followers on TikTok, love for fashion and beauty, only dating 6 months before getting engaged, philanthropy work, and more!
* * *
**For those who don’t know, who is Kelianne?**
The first thing I always say is that I’m a gymnast. I grew up doing gymnastics, I did that for over 10+ years, I competed in World Championships in 2012 for Acrobatic Gymnastics. That was my life all growing up until I was 18. I did dance as well, I competed in dance and gymnastics at the same time which is insane. I don’t know how I did it. \[laughs\] Now I moved to LA and I’m tackling the entertainment world.
**What was that training schedule like? I’m sure it was very rigorous, a lot of discipline.**
I was at the gym morning and night for my entire life. I started when I was 7, then stopped when I was 15. When I started, I started at a really high level just because I was so good at it. I naturally was good at it. I was a really high level athlete really quickly, so I was in the gym morning and night for 7 hours a day. I loved it, it was so much fun. I learned a lot about discipline, what it takes to really reach goals and how to work hard.
**How was it competing in Championships? I would imagine the anxiety level.**
Oh my goodness, the nerves! \[laughs\] We trained to deal with your nerves. You train for it, so I was prepared to deal with those nerves. The training that we did leading up to World Championships, insane. My body was in such good shape. I wish I was in that shape now, such good shape oh my gosh.
**That takes so much strength, what was your favorite thing to do?**
So in Acrobat Gymnastics, you have a partner. When I competed at the World Championships, my partner was a guy. We were in a mixed pair. You had balance and dynamic. Balance is you’re balancing in a handstand, balancing moves, and dynamic is where you throw and catch. That was my favorite, I loved to flip and all that stuff.
**What made you stop?**
A high competition is World Championships. You have to have partners to do acrobat gymnastics. My partners, they stopped doing it right before World Championships the second time, so I had to stop as well. You can’t do it unless you have a partner.
**Do you miss it?**
I do. I miss the competing and the performance side of it, but that intense training was a lot. \[laughs\] I don’t miss that, but I miss competing a lot.
**Where are you located?**
I’m from Riverside, California but I currently live in Irvine. I moved to LA when I was 19, and I just moved to Irvine. It’s nice, it's definitely very different from LA. It’s more slow-paced and chill. I find myself getting bored \[laughs\], but it’s nice. There’s great food here.
**What went behind your decision to move to LA?**
I decided to move to LA with my best friend. I was 19, she was 18. We both wanted to do the entertainment industry with dancing, acting, singing. We saved money for an entire year, then moved together to LA. We didn’t really have a plan, but we knew we both wanted to do the entertainment industry. I moved to LA at 19, did some acting stuff. Started doing social media, but nothing really took off. I was working a gymnastics job, coaching. Struggling my first year. \[laughs\] Fast forward to Covid is when everything took off on TikTok. I started making videos with my two best friends during Covid, we were bored and had nothing else to do.
**Who are your best friends?**
Tayler Holder and Nate Wyatt, they’re TikTokers and artists as well. We started making videos together and they just went viral.
**What were the videos?**
I was teaching them how to do gymnastics, the silliest things where we’d show our personality and people would love them. The gymnastics videos were always fails, they never ended well. \[laughs\] I was always dropped. They’re really funny videos. We kept doing them and kept posting together. We all blew up, which is crazy. We got millions and millions of views on TikTok.
**Were you ready for that attention?**
No, I don’t think you’re ever fully prepared to go viral. It’s a weird thing, but it’s crazy. We’d post, sit there and watch the views go up like “this is insane!” People are watching our videos? It was so cool.
**A lot of people are trying to do TikTok, was there any practices or strategies that worked for you guys?**
We made videos a lot, but once we found a video that did really well, we kept doing that same video a lot. We stayed consistent with it. We’d all post at the same time, every single day for months. We’d stay consistent with it, we’d post at the same time every single day for months. We did that for months, just to stay consistent and to keep growing our channel. We always made videos together, but we’d also make videos by ourselves so people learned to love us individually. \[laughs\] They were always used to seeing us together as 3 people, but we needed to make them love us individually. Constantly making content, which is hard. It’s hard to be creative every single day. We just stayed consistent and grew.
**How does it feel to have** [**10 million followers on TikTok**](https://www.tiktok.com/@keliannestankus?lang=en)**? That’s wild!**
Yes 10.1 million. I know, it’s big. \[laughs\] It's crazy to think about. If all those people were in one room… oh my gosh! \[sighs\]
**Is there any pressure with that many?**
I mean, yeah. There is pressure: you’re looked upon, you have to say the right things. But I love it, it’s fun. It’s a fun group of people I can help inspire or influence.
**Talk about your love for beauty as well.**
I’ve loved makeup since I could remember. I used to make YouTube videos with my makeup tutorials. I’ve never posted these videos, they're terrible. \[laughs\] I’ve always loved makeup, I loved to play around. It’d be fun to play dress up and mess around with your style. It’s so much fun, you can change your look. I just got new hair, long extensions put back in because I got bored with my short hair. Might as well change it up, and now I have long hair.
**What are your favorite makeup brands?**
Ooh, right now I love Charlotte Tilbury. I love Tart. I think Charlotte Tilbury’s one of my favorites right now.
**I know you’ve worked with L’Oréal…**
Oh my gosh, L’Oréal is a dream brand to work with. So crazy, I loved working with them. I did a whole skincare thing with them. I love skincare, it’s one of my favorite things. I’m so excited that I got to work with them.
**What is your skincare routine?**
My skincare routine morning and night, I’ll never go to sleep with makeup on. I think it was Jennifer Aniston who said she’s never fallen asleep with makeup on because it ages you 7 years every time you do it. Nope! I’m not doing that. I’m not going to add any wrinkles to my face. Skincare is definitely a big part of my routine.
**Do you have a favorite designer?**
A thing about me is I’ve never bought anything designer. I’ve never ever bought anything designer for myself. I’ve bought other people wallets and backpacks, but I’ve never bought anything designer. Why? I just haven’t. I love looking at YSL bags, Chanel bags, I haven’t done it yet.
**I feel you. That’s rent money!**
\[laughs\] It is. I don’t know, I just can’t, but I want to. Can’t imagine spending that much money on a bag, but I want to.
**What inspires your fashion?**
Honestly, what I’m feeling. The trends I guess you could say online, but really what I’m feeling. I’m not a super girly girl when it comes to my style. I like to feel comfy, I’m in a tracksuit right now, to feel comfortable. More on the casual side, that’s definitely my style.
**Everyone is asking how the wedding planning is going?**
It’s going good, I have a wedding planner and she’s fantastic. She’s been doing a lot of it. She does 90% of everything so it hasn’t been stressful, which is really nice. We’ve been able to enjoy it, which is nice. It’s going good. I know things are going to pick up within this next year. The beginning of the year, I know we’ll have a lot of things to do. But it’s been a lot of fun.
**How does it feel to be getting married?**
It’s crazy! \[laughs\] I used to dream about this moment. I used to dream about this moment of when I’m going to get married, start a family. I used to think about all the time when I was younger, so it’s crazy to be living it now. I’m so happy.
**How long have you been dating Chase Mattson? How did you guys meet?**
I saw him on Instagram and slid in his DMs. I DMed him and said hi, and we went from there. We’ve talked every day since. That was back in 2020, we started dating a month after we first met. That was during Covid, we didn’t really have anything else to do except talk and get to know each other. We couldn’t go to the movies, go bowling, all these things, so we got to know each other. 6 months into our relationship, he proposed. It was so fast, but it feels so right.
Now it’s been a year since we got engaged. December 12th, it hit a year.
**Were you taken by surprise when he proposed?**
Yes, but we talked about it before. We talked about getting married and when he’s going to propose, but he made it seem like he was going to wait until the next year to propose. I had 0 idea, which I liked having no idea because it was a really big surprise. I enjoyed it a lot more since it was a surprise.
**What is your guys’ ideal date night?**
Really simple. Going to eat sushi, then coming home to watch a movie together. It doesn’t need to be super extravagant, just quality time.
**How does It feel to grace the cover of Brides?**
Oh my gosh, so cool! That shoot was so much fun to do. It’s fun to play dress up and kind of put on the wedding dress. I’m in a dress, he’s in a tuxedo, it was a lot of fun. It’s exciting we’re on the cover!
**All these amazing photoshoots and collabs, coming up as a gymnast did you think you’d be here?**
From gymnastics to what I’m doing now is definitely very different, but I knew I always wanted to be in the entertainment world. I always told my mom growing up I’d move to LA and be on TV. \[laughs\] It’s always been a dream of mine. It’s cool to actually be doing and living it. I feel very blessed to have all of these opportunities, I’m so grateful to everyone who supports me everyday. I couldn’t thank you guys enough.
**You have such a core fanbase.**
My fans are very nice and supportive. I read all of their DMs all of the time. Everyone is so nice, I’m so grateful for them.
**Are you doing anything in the acting realm?**
I’m not doing anything currently with acting, but I did musical theater in middle school. I loved it. I’ve done a little acting here and there with web series, but definitely dream role is a movie. An action movie would be so much fun to play the superhero.
**You have the skills for it!**
I know, that’s why I want to do my own stunts. That’d be so much fun.
**When did your love for music start? Were you doing gymnastics at the same time?**
No, I grew up in a really musical family. My dad and brothers could play any instrument, pick it up and just play it. I always grew up around music, but I was always in the gym so I couldn’t really focus on it. I did learn how to play ukulele**,** I can play guitar a little bit. I didn’t really focus on it because I was focused on gymnastics. I moved to LA, always kept it a secret that I could sing. \[laughs\]
I don’t know, I’m nervous about it. I used to sing in theater and middle school, wasn’t very vocal about it. One day, I sent a video to my manager of me singing. She freaked out like “oh my gosh, you’ve been keeping this a secret for so long!” I’m like “I know…” I don’t know why I just decided to send it to her one day. From there, we said “let’s get me into the studio and start making music.” That’s been going on for two years now. We’ve been working for a while. Really been working on my sound, figuring out what type of music I want to make. I released a Christmas song with my best friends Taylor and Nate last year. That was the first time anyone has heard me sing on the internet, which was really fun. I love Christmas music, it’s my favorite. I like that I can listen to it every year. I’m so excited to finally do my own music.
**How does it feel to release that Christmas song?**
It was exciting. I was definitely nervous about what people were going to say, but everyone was super supportive. The responses were very positive, that made me very happy.
**Who are your musical influences ?**
With music, what I like to listen to is all over the place. Some days, I like to listen to Drake. Other days I like to listen to Britney Spears, Dua Lipa, Rihanna. I love Rihanna. Ariana Grande, been really loving Ariana recently. It just depends on the mood I’m in. Some days, I like R&B/hip hop.
**3 things you need in the studio?**
Celsius, to keep me awake. \[laughs\] Usually a blanket because I’m cold, and my phone. I always need my phone to write down notes.
**What does female empowerment mean to you?**
One thing I’ve always wanted to do: I have this sticky note on my mirror that says “inspire people with your work.” That’s something I want to do with my whole career, is inspire people to really get out there and do what you want to do. I have a lot of dreams, goals and things I want to do. I can accomplish them all if I work hard. I want to inspire people that they can as well too. Let nothing stop them. If you work hard, you can do it too.
**Talk about your philanthropy, you want to give clean water to those in need.**
I believe everyone should have clean drinking water. It’s a basic need that everyone needs. I’d love to go out with the water projects and give water to people, set up water plants. It’s something I’ve always wanted to do, hopefully I could do that in near future.
**What do you like to do for fun?**
I love to sit and watch Netflix. \[laughs\] I’m like an introvert, but extrovert tendencies sometimes. I’m very introverted, I love to stay home and watch Netflix on my freetime. Recently me and Chase have been watching a lot of movies, because I haven’t seen a lot of movies. We just watch. Right now, we’re watching a lot of Christmas movies.
**What’s your favorite snack while you’re watchingTV?**
Right now, I love pita chips. They’re Parmesan & Garlic pita chips. I love them.
**Anything you’re most excited for next ?**
I’m most excited for my new music soon. Coming soon! So excited for it. Thanks for watching and supporting me.
.jpg)
