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On Her Way: Local Teen Marissa Govic is Our Newest Rising Pop Star
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This story is from our July/August 2017 issue. For more content like this, subscribe to the magazine.
Written by Janis Fontaine
Photo by Aaron Bristol
Marissa Govic knows what she wants: “I want to be a pop star,” she says.
On Feb. 1, Marissa, a seventh-grader, released her first album on iTunes. The four-song EP is called “Trending Now,” which is also her first single. The official video was published on YouTube on Feb. 9, and it has more than 250,000 views and nearly 1,000 likes.
Marissa was reared in Florida and New York City, but Boca Raton is home now. The 13-year-old sings, dances, acts and plays both piano and violin. She has experience on the stage, television and in the recording studio, and has even done live-on-the-red carpet TV interviews for the Teen Choice Awards.
When she’s not busy chasing her pop-star dream, Marissa is busy with academics and extracurricular activities at Saint Andrew’s School. In February, she competed in an academic challenge in Chinese language and culture, with two days of reading, writing and speaking the language, and learning about its social aspects. She also hosted a “hunger project” for the charity Feeding Children Everywhere. “People are unaware of how many children are hungry,” she says.
Marissa had to raise the money for the event (about $5,000), and recruited student volunteers to participate in the hands-on challenge. She supervised more than 150 students who formed an assembly line and packaged 20,000 single-serving meals to feed the hungry in Miami-Dade County.
It’s an exciting life and Marissa is thriving, but time management is an issue. “My mom tells me where I have to be, and with before-school and afterschool stuff, there’s always something that has to be done. Weekends are so busy. It’s hard to find time to spend with my friends.”
And then there’s family time. The Govics are a tight-knit group. Marissa’s mom, Ann Marie, is a local Realtor, and her father, Mario, is a wealth manager in Palm Beach; she also has a little brother, Jack, age 9. They love to travel and spend time together, but the family sometimes has to plan around Marissa’s hectic schedule.
Marissa names Demi Lovato and “Glee” veteran Lea Michele as role models. “I love Demi’s music. Lea Michele is someone I admire. She’s gone from the stage to TV to releasing her own album and singing on her own tour to writing a book. She’s been through a lot and handled it well,” Marissa says.
Most of her peers support her, and most of the feedback she’s gotten has been positive, but Marissa has endured some haters and trolls. “It’s really hard,” she says. “You just have to find a way to get past it.”
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