If you’re a Twitter/X user, perhaps you’ve seen someone quote-tweet this post from Bridgit Mendler: “k sit tight for news.” The joke is that Mendler had fans sitting tight for almost two full years. The other joke is that a lot of people probably don’t even know who Bridgit Mendler is, or what kind of news she was teasing in the first place. As it turns out, even her most devoted followers probably couldn’t have guessed what otherworldly endeavors the ex-Disney Channel star was teasing.
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But let’s back up to the beginning for those of you asking, “Who the hell is Bridgit Mendler?” At one time, Mendler was positioned as the new face of the Disney Channel. Like other homegrown Disney kids, the actor got her start doing guest spots on shows like Jonas and Wizards Of Waverly Place before becoming the lead of her own show, Good Luck Charlie. She had a main role in the Disney Channel Original Movie musical Lemonade Mouth and, as is Disney tradition, was given a Hollywood Records contract and had a couple of mildly popular songs (“Hurricane,” “Ready Or Not”), for those who were tuned in to the channel when those music videos were playing during commercial breaks.
Mendler’s work on the channel was extremely beloved by her generation of Disney viewers. But she had the misfortune of being crowned the Main Disney Girl in the immediate aftermath of an era that included Miley Cyrus, Selena Gomez, and Demi Lovato. Her time on the channel was largely overshadowed by the tabloid-friendly exploits of her predecessor’s post-Disney careers, and her post-Disney career (the Whitney Cummings sitcom Undateable, the Netflix multicam Merry Happy Whatever) never touched the blockbuster success of other ex-Mouse House stars.
Nevertheless, she earned a loyal following, who kept tabs on her career—which actually turned out to be one of the most interesting post-Disney pivots ever. By 2019, she had largely quit acting and was focused on pursuing a graduate degree at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. She was an MIT Media Lab Director’s Fellow and eventually moved on to pursue her Ph.D. at the school, in addition to taking classes at Harvard Law. Over the years, moments of interest from her post-Disney life would make headlines, like getting married with her Lemonade Mouth co-star Naomi Scott as a bridesmaid or her impassioned defense of then-nominee for Supreme Court justice Brett Kavanaugh accuser Christine Blasey Ford, who turned out to be her aunt. You really never know what you’re going to get as a Bridgit Mendler fan!
That brings us to today, with Mendler’s latest out-of-left-field announcement. The singer finally made good on that 2022 promise to bring fans news by announcing her new satellite startup Northwood Space. According to an interview with CNBC, Mendler spent time at the Federal Communications Commission’s new Space Bureau and “completely fell in love with space law” (a fantastic sentence, we can all agree). The vision for the company is to mass-produce ground stations that connect to satellites in space to receive data. “The vision is a data highway between Earth and space,” Mendler told CNBC. “Space is getting easier along so many different dimensions but still the actual exercise of sending data to and from space is difficult. You have difficulty finding an access point for contacting your satellite.” And, as if that wasn’t news enough, she also became a mom via fostering to adopt. Life is truly a rich tapestry if you’re Bridgit Mendler.
It’s not the music renaissance that Mendler fans hoped for, but it is, frankly, a lot more fascinating. Mendler is part of an elite club of ex-child stars who aimed high in higher education for their next chapter, and clearly, it paid off. (Quite literally: Northwood raised $6 million in initial funding, per CNBC.) Someday we may know her better as a space entrepreneur, and her Disney Channel days will be but a novelty footnote on her impressive résumé.