Sofie Dossi is an American contortionist, aerialist, YouTuber and singer who first became a household name in 2016, when a bow and arrow act performed entirely upside down earned her a Golden Buzzer on America’s Got Talent. She was fourteen at the time, and she had taught herself every move at home in Cypress, California, by copying videos she found online.
A decade later, that same do-it-yourself streak has turned one viral audition into a full career. She now runs a YouTube channel with more than ten million subscribers, has released original music, has acted in network television shows, and returned to the AGT stage as a Golden Buzzer recipient a second time in 2024. Her story says less about a single lucky break than about what she built after it.
Early Life and How She Taught Herself Contortion
Sofie Clarice Dossi was born on June 21, 2001, in Cypress, California, to Abir Dossi and Mike Dossi. Her mother is of Arab descent, and her father, who grew up in Brooklyn, New York, is of Italian descent. Dossi was homeschooled alongside her older brother, Zak, who later became a music producer and a regular presence in her videos.
As a child, she studied gymnastics, dance and classical piano, training that gave her the strength and body control her later act required. Long before any television camera arrived, her father would watch her practice archery and balancing tricks in the family’s front yard, patience that eventually turned into him helping design props for her stage shows.
At age twelve, after watching a Cirque du Soleil clip on YouTube, she decided to try contortion herself. With no coach and no formal training, she copied poses she found online, then began inventing her own once she ran out of videos to learn from.
Her mother, Abir, handled the homeschooling directly, which gave the family the flexible schedule needed for daily training and, later, travel to performances and auditions. Dossi stands about 5 feet 1 inch tall, and while she grew up in Cypress, her career has since pulled her north to Los Angeles, closer to the studios and productions much of her later work involves.
The Golden Buzzer Moment That Started It All
Dossi auditioned for the eleventh season of America’s Got Talent in 2016, at age fourteen. Her first performance had her bending her knees over her head while balanced on one hand on a cane, grabbing an apple with her feet and taking a bite out of it mid pose. She followed that by shooting a bow and arrow with her feet while holding a handstand.
Howie Mandel, Mel B, Heidi Klum and Simon Cowell all voted her through. During the Judge Cuts round, guest judge Reba McEntire awarded her the Golden Buzzer after an aerial hoop routine that ended with her shooting a flaming arrow from her feet. Dossi made it into the season’s finals but did not crack the top five.
The viral clips also created a rumor that has followed her for years: that she was born without a spine. It is not true. Her flexibility comes from years of self-directed training, not from any unusual bone structure, something she has had to correct in interviews more than once.
Every Return to the AGT Stage Since 2016
Most contestants appear on America’s Got Talent once and move on. Dossi kept coming back.
- 2019: She competed on America’s Got Talent: The Champions and was eliminated after the preliminary round, finishing third in her heat.
- 2019: She returned as a guest performer during a Season 14 quarterfinal result show, collaborating with singer Bianca Ryan.
- 2023: She appeared as a guest performer alongside Reba McEntire during a Season 18 qualifiers result show.
- 2024: On America’s Got Talent: Fantasy League, mentor Heidi Klum gave her a second career Golden Buzzer. In the finals, she performed a handstand routine on a spinning prop nicknamed the Wheel of Death, one her father helped design and build after she pushed for something he considered close to reckless. NBC’s own recap of the act described it as “life or death,” a description that reflected how little room the routine left for error.
- 2024: She guest performed during the Season 19 semifinals.
- 2025: She made a guest appearance for the show’s 20th anniversary special.
Nine years between her first audition and her most recent AGT appearance is unusual for a reality competition alumna, and it reflects how closely the franchise still associates her with its biggest moments.
From Reality TV to a Ten Million Subscriber Channel
After AGT, Dossi shifted her focus to YouTube, where her channel has been active since 2016. As of mid 2026, it has more than 10.1 million subscribers and over 2.2 billion total views. Her videos mix contortion and flexibility challenges with vlogs, pranks and collaborations, often featuring her brother Zak and close friends.
She has built a following on other platforms too, with roughly 4.6 million followers on Instagram and, by most tracking sites, more than 12 million on TikTok. Those numbers shift regularly, but the scale of her following has stayed in the multi million range across every platform for several years.
Over the years she has collaborated with creators including Logan Paul, Lilly Singh and Zach King, appearances that introduced her act to audiences who never watched her original AGT run. That cross platform overlap, television fame feeding a YouTube audience that then feeds back into new television bookings, has kept her relevant well past the usual shelf life of a single reality show appearance.
Media Recognition Beyond YouTube
Dossi’s early virality brought attention from outlets well outside the AGT fan base. She appeared on The Ellen DeGeneres Show three times in 2018 and was featured by Nightline, ESPN, Fox Sports, People, Allure and Refinery29. Her YouTube work also picked up Streamy Award nominations in 2017 and 2020.
That kind of mainstream crossover is rare for a performer whose core skill, contortion, rarely gets national television time outside of talent competitions and circus arts. It also explains why she was able to move into acting and music with an existing audience already paying attention, instead of building one from nothing.
Acting Roles, a Podcast and a Music Career
Dossi’s post AGT work has not stayed inside one lane. On television, she played a contortionist in a 2016 episode of K.C. Undercover called Tightrope of Doom and appeared as herself in Bizaardvark that same year. From 2018 to 2019, she held a main role, Dani, in the Brat web series Boss Cheer. Boss Cheer followed a competitive high school cheer squad, giving Dossi a scripted role that leaned on her gymnastics background rather than her contortion act specifically.
In October 2020, she launched the Kiss and Tell podcast with actress Kyla Kenedy, a show built around young Hollywood relationships and the kind of dating stories their audience does not usually hear told firsthand. Two years later, she moved into music with her debut single, Bunny, an electropop track written and produced with her brother Zak. She has said the song grew out of a breakup, and she has named singer Melanie Martinez as an influence on its sound.
What Sofie Dossi’s Net Worth Estimates Actually Show
Dossi has not published or confirmed an official net worth figure, and no major financial outlet has audited her earnings. Online trackers disagree considerably. Analytics site Hafi estimates her combined YouTube, Instagram and TikTok income at roughly 1.7 million to 2.2 million dollars a year, while separate celebrity wealth sites put her total net worth anywhere from about 2 million to 5 million dollars.
What stays consistent across every estimate is where the money comes from: YouTube ad revenue, brand sponsorships on Instagram and TikTok, her own clothing and merchandise line, and fees from live performances and television bookings. Readers should treat any specific net worth number attached to her name as an outside estimate, not a confirmed figure, since Dossi and her team have not put out one of their own.
Family, Sam Golbach and Her Personal Life
Dossi’s family has stayed closely involved in her career for years. Her father, Mike, has worked behind the scenes on her acts since she was a child, including helping build the rotating prop she used in her 2024 AGT: Fantasy League finale. Her brother, Zak, produces music and appears regularly in her videos.
On the relationship side, Dossi previously dated social media personality Dom Brack before the two split. In August 2025, she confirmed a relationship with YouTuber Sam Golbach, known for the Sam and Colby channel, which he has run for years with longtime collaborator Colby Brock. The two went public with a joint social media post after months of fan speculation following sightings at industry events.
Why She Still Stands Out Among Former Reality TV Contestants
Plenty of America’s Got Talent alumni fade once their season ends. Dossi took a different route. Instead of relying on one viral moment, she used it to build a YouTube channel, then added acting, a podcast and a music career on top of that, and kept coming back to AGT itself across nine seasons and specials.
The thread connecting all of it is the same self-taught discipline that got her started at twelve years old. Contortion demanded years of solitary, unglamorous practice before anyone was watching. Music, acting and podcasting each asked her to learn a new skill in public instead, with an audience already able to compare the result to the act that made her famous, and she approached each one the same way, by starting anyway and improving as she went.
Few AGT alumni turn a single golden buzzer into acting credits, a podcast, a released single and a decade-long relationship with the show itself. Dossi has managed all four, and at twenty-five, she is still adding to the list.
