Madison Bailey Is the Hollywood Role Model We Need

When chatting with Outer Banks actress Madison Bailey, it feels like no topic is off limits. “I don’t advocate for the idolization of celebrities,” the 24-year-old says over Zoom on a Friday afternoon. “Celebrities are just people who gained notoriety for doing something they love. I’m still a human. But the message I’m always preaching is to be yourself, so if people don’t get that from me, where’s that message going?”

After three seasons of portraying rich girl-turned-adventurer Kiara Carrera, Bailey has certainly gained “celebrity” status, recognized by fans while grocery shopping in sweats (“I’m like, ‘I forgot that I’m somebody, I’m just here to get bread.’”). Still, that hasn’t changed her dedication to authenticity.

Bailey doesn’t use social media as just a highlight reel of glamorous moments (though red-carpet walks and fashion collaborations are there, too). Instead, it’s more like a diary she uses to share intimate details of her life; her feed feels like chatting with a childhood friend. “Sometimes I get nervous before I share something, but there’s so much that overpowers my nerves,” Bailey says. “Knowing that I am setting an example overrides my discomfort.”

That means going on the record about topics that for past generations of stars were considered completely taboo: her pansexual identity and mental health struggles.

“I came out at 18, and gained my following at 21,” she says. “It wasn’t exactly a coming out, more like it was a detail when nobody knew anything about me.” The actress has been in a relationship with former college basketball player and fellow social media star Mariah Linney since 2020, which she revealed through a TikTok video.

Bailey also talks about her borderline personality disorder diagnosis and has been refreshingly open with how her mental health intermingles with her daily life. “I felt less ‘crazy’ post-diagnosis,” she says, using finger quotation marks around the c-word. “It’s comforting to know that my brain is just different, and it was easier to figure out where to go from there.”

Another word Bailey uses throughout the interview to describe herself is independent. “That’s something Kiara and I actually have in common,” she says. “We know what we want, and we will fight for it. Though Kiara would be repulsed by my closet—I am a girly-girl through and through.”

Bailey grew up the youngest of seven siblings and was always performing for her family, so the entertainment industry was a natural fit. Stars like Selena Gomez and Demi Lovato were major inspirations; she tried singing first, but loved the freedom that acting gave her to “be anybody” while also learning more about herself. “It gave me an outlet to feel all of those 15-year-old feelings—and it was encouraged,” she says.

Kiara’s role was one of the last cast in Outer Banks, so Bailey was flown to the set in Charleston, South Carolina for a chemistry read with Madelyn Cline (Sarah), Jonathan Daviss (Pope), and Rudy Pankow (JJ). “They let me know that day, in person, that I got the role,” she says. “Everything moved so fast after that.”

Her career has been nonstop ever since. She’s a face of Rihanna’s Fenty Beauty, and coming up are two films (Time Cut, a Netflix thriller, and The Painter). Bailey’s also got her heart set on playing a “cool, sexy spy” or the female lead in a rom-com: “There’s so much I haven’t done, and so much I want to do.”

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Hair by Vernon François for Redken; makeup by Karo Kangas; produced by Rhianna Rule.

A version of this story appears in the May 2023 issue of ELLE.

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