Kristin Richardson

Kristin Richardson
Birth Name	Kristin Kay Willits
Nickname(s)	Kris Kristy
Gender	Female
Birthplace	Shawnee Mission, KA, USA
Birthdate	August 4th, 1970 (age 53)
Occupation(s)	Dancer Actress Model Choreographer Photographer
Years Active	1992-present
Height	5'9 (175 cm)
Alma Mater	Oklahoma City University
Spouse	Kevin Richardson (6/17/2000)
Mason Richardson (b. 2007), Max Richardson (b. 2013)

Kristin Kay Richardson (née Willits, born August 4, 1970), is a dancer, actress, model, and photographer.

Early life

Richardson was born on August 4, 1970, in Shawnee Mission, Kansas, to John Willits, a chiropractor, and Susan Patton, a car dealership. She has two siblings: older brother Brad Willits and older sister Tina Heut. Her parents divorced when she was .

Growing up, she spent her childhood , and could already ride a horse at age . When she was a kid, she enjoyed horseback riding, and was drawn to sports, such as playing , which led her to gymnastics in high school and being captain (co-captain of the gymnastics team, a leader, and a choreographer) of her team called the Cougarettes. "She was fun and funny," said gymnastics coach Janice Miller. "Kristin was real vivacious in high school."

Kim Watts, co-captain of the team with Willits, said they spent much time together. "We were in every activity under the sun in high school," she said. "She was always a captain, a leader, a main choreographer."

At a young age, Kristin loved music and was fascinated with Madonna, always looking and dressed like her, but was the opposite of "Material Girl" in high school. "She was real bubbly and friendly to everybody," Kim said. "She didn't care who you were. She was very popular, yet never stuck up." In her teens, she started her first dance class as a high school sophomore at age 15 but adored every minute. It was just a short time before she was working and training hard to catch up, participating as a member of the school's Cougar Classic Drill team, member of the cheerleading squad, and participating as staff of her school paper, The Northwest Passage, at Shawnee Mission Northwest High School in Kansas, where she was secretary of the homecoming committee and also 1st runner-up for homecoming queen her senior year.

Career

Early career

While in high school, Kristin worked at Worlds of Fun as a dancer and singer in the variety shows. After graduating high school in 1988, she attended the University of Kansas for one semester before transferring to Oklahoma City University to study dance. She graduated from Oklahoma City University in 1992 with a Performing Arts degree in Classical and Jazz Dance. She then worked at Busch Gardens in Williamsburg, Virginia, during the summers while she was in college.

After leaving Oklahoma in 1992, She eventually moved to Orlando to work at Walt Disney World in the Beauty and the Beast attraction, where she played and danced as a maid and a jello-mold and also played Snow White in The Lion King show. That was where she met her future husband. Six months after that, she worked on a Royal Odyssey cruise ship in the Mediterranean for seven months to a year.

Dancer

Kristin auditioned for and was accepted to spend two years as a Radio City Rockette in New York. She toured with the Will Rogers Follies company across the United States and was on Broadway in A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum with Nathan Lane, Whoopi Goldberg, and David Alan Grier. After completing the workshop production of “Footloose,” Kristin left Broadway to pursue film and television roles in Los Angeles, electing not to continue with the show for its Broadway run.

In 1999, Willits was also one of the six dancers in Cher's Believe tour. You can see her in "All Or Nothing," Cher's video clip, which consists of different parts of the "Believe" tour.

Acting career

After her time on stage, Kristin transitioned to television acting on the Comedy Central show Viva Variety. In 1996, she appeared in the European version of the Backstreet Boys music video “I'll Never Break Your Heart” as her then-boyfriend's love interest. She appeared in Will Smith’s "Wild Wild West" video in 1999 and Everclear’s “Rock Star” video in 2001. When she returned to LA, she played her first role in Warner Brothers’s “Rock Star” alongside Mark Wahlberg and Jennifer Aniston. Kristin has guest-starred on numerous shows such as Angel, Charmed, Supernatural, Joey, Cold Case, NYPD Blue, and CSI.

Along with the rest of the wives and the Backstreet Boys, Willits and her husband appeared on I Heart Nick Carter.

Kristin was featured in the 2015 documentary Pushing Motherhood, in which she speaks openly about her and Kevin's struggles with fertility.

Long since her first music video appearance, Willits appeared in Florida Georgia Line's collaboration video with the Backstreet Boys God, Your Mama and Me with her sons in February 2017 and No Place with her whole family on January 4, 2019.

On November 30, 2022, with all of the Backstreet Boys families, Willits, her husband, and their two boys were in Los Angeles for the filming of the Boys' holiday special "A Very Backstreet Holiday" that was scheduled to air for December 14, 2022.

Personal life

Richardson has been married to Kevin Richardson since 2000. They met in the early '90s (1992) when they both worked at Walt Disney World in Orlando, Florida. Kristin was dancing in Beauty and the Beast as a jello-mold and a maid while playing the character of Snow White in "The Lion King" Show, while Kevin was playing various characters, including Aladdin, one of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Prince Eric, Tigger, and Sebastian the Crab in the Little Mermaid show when they met in the commissary. "She was sitting’ down with some friends and, uh, a buddy of mine came up to me and said, ‘You need to ‘introduce yourself to her’ so, evidently, she’d been kinda checking’ me out, so he kinda gave me the green light ‘cause I’m, I was a shy type a guy, can’t just go up and ask ladies out, so I went and introduced myself and later on, a couple days later I asked her for her number and asked her if she was interested in goin' out," Kevin recalls. They began a relationship and dated on and off for about seven or eight years on the down-low, breaking up in 1996 and getting back together in late 1997/early 1998 before they took their romance public. Kristin was also featured in one of the Backstreet Boys' earliest videos, "I'll Never Break Your Heart," and one of the dancers at the American Music Awards in 1999. Their first appearance together was at the 1999 MTV Video Music Awards premiered on September 9, 1999.

Kevin went the old-fashioned route and asked her father, John Willits, for Kristin's hand in marriage in Kansas City at the Into the Millennium Tour. Their engagement, along with Kevin's bandmate and cousin Brian Littrell's to Leighanne Wallace, was announced on MTV in February 2000, and the couple married on June 17, 2000, at The Cathedral Domain Camp and Conference Center in rural Lee County in eastern Kentucky. Kristin wore a beige wedding gown and walked barefoot on red rose petals up to the altar. Kevin wore a suit and Versace sandals. Her twin nephews were ring-bearers, and her 1.5-year-old niece was the flower girl. There were 180 family and friends at the wedding. Tim, Kevin's brother, performed the ceremony, while his other brother was the best man. The newlyweds spent their honeymoon in Italy. Together, they have two sons: Mason Frey was born on July 3, 2007, at 4:56 a.m., and Maxwell Haze was born on July 10, 2013.

Kristin was a founding member of her husband’s environment organization, Just Within Reach.

Gallery

Filmography

TV series and films
Year	Film	Role	Notes
1997	Viva Variety
1999	Man on the Moon	Tony Clifton Dancer
1999	Malibu, CA	Kelly
2000	The Michael Richards Show	Lorrel Canyons	It's Only Personal
2000	Crossings (short)	Sharon
2001	Once and Again	Delancey
2001	Rock Star	Samantha
2001	Once and Again	Delancey	Tough Love
2003	Charmed	Darla	Centennial Charmed
2003	Angel	Female KTLA Reporter Tracy	Peace Out
2004	Shut Up and Kiss Me	Jessica Preston
2004	Eve (TV series)	Carmen	Ride or Die Chick
2004	Two and a Half Men	Tiffany	Just Like Buffalo
2004	Lost (TV series)	Jessica	Confidence Man
2005	Jarhead	Stewardess
2005	NYPD Blue	Elizabeth Keenan	La Bomba
2005	Cold Case	Angie Parrington	Family
2005	CSI: Crime Scene Investigation	Eva	Room Service
2005	Jarhead	Stewardess
2005	Supernatural	Jenny	Home
2005	Laundry Night	Sydney	(short film)
2006	Final Movie	Sarah Underhill
2006	E-Ring	Princess Amelia	The Two Princes
2006	Out of Practice	Trisha	Yours, Mine or His?
2006	Joey	Edie	Joey and the Beard
2006	Close to Home	DeeDee Bass	Homecoming
2007	CSI: Miami	Kate Lambert	My Nanny
2007	Harpies	Celestia
2007	Soupernatural	Kelly O'Day
2008	Boiler Maker	Trish
2009	Without a Trace	Chelsea Keyes	Chameleon
2009	Criminal Minds	Yvonne Ashford	Pleasure Is My Business
2010	CSI:NY	Sarah Hansen	Criminal Justice
2010	Numb3rs	Roxie Ray	Devil Girl
2010	The Defenders	Jen Riley	Nevada v. Riley
2010	Anderson's Cross	Step-Mom Missy
2012	Between the lines (short film)	Sally
2014	I Heart Nick Carter	Herself
2015	Pushing Motherhood	Herself
2015	Wingman Inc.	Kim

Other

Music Video/Performances

Year	Title	Artist	Role	Notes
1994	Barney Live in New York City	Barney Live	Dancer
1995	I'll Never Break Your Heart	Backstreet Boys	Kevin's love interest	Music video (European version)
1999	All or Nothing (Cher song)	Cher	Female Backup Dancer	Music video
1999	Wild Wild West (hip hop song)	Will Smith	Dancer	Music video
1999	Everybody	Backstreet Boys	Dancer	American Music Awards
1999	Believe Tour	Cher	Dancer	HBO Concert
2001	Rockstar	Everclear
2017	God, Your Mama and Me	Florida Georgia Line featuring Backstreet Boys	Herself	Music video
2019	No Place	Backstreet Boys	Herself	Music Video

Facts

Resume

Movie

• Man On The Moon 1999 as Showgirl
• Forever Yours as Courtney
• Ganges On The Hudson
• Crossings 2000 as Sharon
• Rockstar 2001 as Samantha
• Shut up and Kiss me 2004 as Jessica
• Laundry Night 2005 as Sydney
• Jarhead 2005 as Stewardess
• Final Move 2006 as Sarah Underhill
• Anderson’s Cross 2007 as Step-mom Missy
• Harpies 2007 as Cecilia
• Soupernatural 2007 as Kelly
• Boiler Maker 2008 as Trish

Video

• Barney Live – Barney Video, Marching Band
• Comedy Central Show Viva Variety
• I´ll never break your heart 1997 – European Version (Backstreet Boys)
• All or Nothing 1999 – Cher
• Believe Tour 1999 – HBO Concert (Cher)
• Wild Wild West 1999 – Will Smith
• Rockstar 2001 – Everclear

Stage

• I’m Here Because of my wife
• Cher Tour 1999 – Dancer / Bungee
• The Will Rogers Follies
• West Side Story
• Beauty And The Beast – Ensemble
• Radio City Christmas Spectacular – Rockette
• The Lion King Spectacular – Snow White

Broadway

• A Funny Thing Happened On The Way To The Forum – Geminae (one of the Courtesans)
• Footloose – Ensemble

TV Shows

• Viva Variety – SS Squad
• Malibu / CA as Kelly – 1999
• The Michael Richards Show as Lorrel Canyons – 2000
• Once and Again as Delancey – 2001
• Charmed as Darla – 2003
• Bravo (with Kevin and Krystal on “It Factor” – February 2003)
• Angel as Reporter – 2003
• The Terry and Gaby Show – 2003
• Eve as Carmen (episode: “Ride or Die Chick” – May 2004)
• Two and a Half Men as Tiffany – 2004
• Lost as Jessica – 2004
• NYPD Blue as Elizabeth Keenan – 2005
• Cold Case as Angie Parrington – 2005
• CSI: Crime Scene Investigation as Eva – 2005
• Supernatural as Jenny – 2005
• Out of Practice as Trisha – 2006
• Joey as Edie Philips – 2006
• Close to Home as DeeDee Bass – 2006
• E-ring as Princess Amelia – 2007
• CSI: Miami as Kate Lambert – 2007
• Without a Trace as Chelsea Keyes – 2009
• Criminal Minds as Yvonne Ashford – 2009
• CSI: NY as Sarah Hansen – 2010
• Numb3rs as Roxie Ray – 2010
• The Defenders as Jen – 2010

Commercials

• GAP Commercial
• 1-800-Collect as Roller girl
• Miller Commercial
• Bud Light Commercial as Birthday Girl

Other

• American Music Awards 1999 – Backstreet Boys Dancer “Everybody” Performance
• World of Fun (Kansas) – Dancer and Singer
• Bush Garden in Williamsburg, VA
• Royal Odyssey – Cruise Ship

Training

• Acting: Janet Alhanti - Meisner Techniques
  Diaan Ainslee - Manhattan Edge Theatre Co.
  Ken Lerner - Cold Reading
  Carolyne Barry Commercials
  AIA School for Film/TV
• BPA: Graduate of Oklahoma City University
• Voice: Michael Lavine, Brad Garside, Barbara Maier

Special Abilities

Dance, Tumbling, Rollerblading, Aerobics, Juggling, Ball Walking, Diving, Water Skiing, Snow Boarding, Bartending, Photography, Bungee acrobat