What Happened to Orlando Brown? Now Running a Restaurant in 2026

If you watched the Disney Channel in the 2000s, Orlando Brown was everywhere. He was Eddie Thomas, Raven’s loyal, fast-talking best friend on “That’s So Raven.” He was the voice of Sticky Webb on “The Proud Family.” Before that, he was little 3J on “Family Matters.” And then, over the next decade, the headlines changed — and not for the better. For years, fans wondered whatever happened to that kid. The answer, in 2026, is more hopeful than most people expect. Here’s where Orlando Brown is now.

01Profile

Full name

Orlando Brown

Born

December 4, 1987 (38 years old)

Birthplace

Los Angeles, California, USA

Occupation

Actor, voice actor, rapper, restaurateur

Best known for

"That's So Raven" (2003), "The Proud Family" (2001)

Other roles

"Family Matters," "Major Payne," "Fillmore!"

If you only know him as Eddie, it’s worth remembering just how busy this kid was. By the time he hit his teens, Orlando Brown had already racked up a resume most working actors would envy. That early success — and how fast it came — matters to understanding everything that followed.

02The Rise of a Disney Channel Kid

From child actor to Family Matters

Orlando Brown started young. As a kid in the 1990s, he appeared in films like “Major Payne” (1995) and landed the recurring role of Jerry Jamal “3J” Jameson on the long-running sitcom “Family Matters.” He also turned up on “The Jamie Foxx Show” as Nelson. By the late ’90s, he was already a familiar face on television to anyone who watched family sitcoms.

The voice of Sticky and the king of Disney guest spots

When the Disney Channel became a cultural juggernaut in the early 2000s, Brown was right in the middle of it. He voiced Sticky Webb, one of Penny Proud’s best friends, on the animated series “The Proud Family” (2001), and he voiced the lead, Cornelius Fillmore, on the animated show “Fillmore!” He also popped up across the Disney Channel universe — guest spots on “Lizzie McGuire,” “Phil of the Future,” and a co-starring turn as Frankie in the Disney Channel Original Movie “Eddie’s Million Dollar Cook-Off.” For a stretch, if a Disney Channel show needed a charismatic young actor, Brown was a go-to.

Eddie Thomas on That’s So Raven

His defining role came in 2003. On “That’s So Raven,” Brown played Eddie Thomas, Raven Baxter’s wisecracking, perpetually scheming best friend, alongside Raven-Symoné and Kyle Massey. The show was a massive hit — one of the Disney Channel’s biggest of the decade — and ran until 2007. Brown also pursued music during this era, releasing material and collaborating with artists including Akon, Sean Kingston, and Raven-Symoné herself. At the time, he looked like a young performer with a long runway ahead of him.

And then “That’s So Raven” ended, and the runway got a lot shorter.

03The Years of Struggle

This is the part of Orlando Brown’s story that dominated headlines for the better part of a decade, and it deserves to be told carefully and factually. After his Disney years wound down, Brown largely disappeared from mainstream Hollywood, and the news coverage that followed was overwhelmingly about personal and legal difficulties rather than acting work.

According to mainstream reporting, Brown was arrested multiple times between roughly 2016 and 2022 on a range of charges. Outlets including Fox News, TMZ, and Complex documented these incidents, which over the years involved allegations such as drug possession and domestic-related charges. In 2018, people close to him appeared on “Dr. Phil” describing concerns about his mental health and substance use; during that period he made widely reported statements that could not be verified.

• 2007"That's So Raven" ends its run; Brown gradually steps away from mainstream acting.
• 2016–2018Mainstream outlets report a series of arrests on various charges, along with concerns from friends and family about his wellbeing.
• 2018People close to Brown appear on "Dr. Phil," describing struggles with mental health and substance use and urging him to seek help.
• December 2022Brown is arrested in Ohio on a domestic-related charge, as reported by TMZ and Fox News.
• February 2023Reporting indicates Brown was ordered to undergo a psychiatric evaluation in connection with the Ohio case.

It’s worth saying plainly: these were difficult, public years, and the coverage was often unkind. But the record also shows a person dealing with serious challenges, supported at various points by family members who repeatedly said they wanted him to get help rather than headlines. The more meaningful chapter is what came next.

04The Road to Recovery

By the early 2020s, the tone of the coverage began to shift. According to reporting, Brown entered a faith-based recovery program, and friends and family began sharing images of a healthier, more grounded Orlando. He has spoken in interviews about leaning on faith and family as he worked to rebuild his life, and he reframed his music around that journey, recording as a faith-based artist.

Recent years have shown a very different Orlando Brown — one more focused on sobriety, faith, and business than celebrity chaos. — Hip-Hop Vibe, 2025

That description, echoed across several outlets covering his comeback, captures the change. Rather than chasing a return to the spotlight on Hollywood’s terms, Brown appeared to be quietly building a different kind of life — one centered on stability, family, and a business he could call his own. By late 2025, he was reportedly sober and channeling his energy into an entrepreneurial venture far from a studio lot.

05What He Is Doing Now

A fried chicken restaurant in Phoenix

The headline of Brown’s 2026 chapter is not a TV role — it’s chicken. In 2025, Brown launched Orlando Brown’s Million Dollar Fried Chicken, a Phoenix, Arizona-based restaurant venture he runs as a family business alongside his brother. According to coverage from outlets including Complex and Hip-Hop Vibe, the menu leans into Southern comfort food — fried chicken, flavored wings, sides, and house specialties with names like “Million Dollar Pudding” — with delivery and pre-order pickup in the Phoenix area.

Brown has been candid about his ambitions for it. He’s talked about wanting to turn Million Dollar Chicken into a franchise and, in his words, the biggest chicken brand in the world. Whether or not it reaches that scale, the venture represents something that eluded him for years: a stable, forward-looking project built on his own name.

Music and faith

Brown hasn’t abandoned music. He has continued to record and release material, now framed largely around his faith and his recovery story. It’s a notable pivot for an artist who, two decades ago, was cutting tracks with pop and hip-hop stars during his Disney peak. Today the music functions less as a bid for chart success and more as a personal testimony.

A different kind of comeback

It’s important to be measured here. Brown is not headlining a major film or fronting a network sitcom, and reports on his finances vary widely and should be treated with caution. What the verifiable record does show is a man who, after years of public hardship, is reportedly sober, working, and building something with his family. For anyone who grew up watching Eddie crack jokes next to Raven, that’s a genuinely good update.

06Summary

Orlando Brown’s path from Disney Channel mainstay to tabloid fixture to Phoenix restaurateur is one of the more turbulent — and ultimately hopeful — child-star stories of his generation. It’s not a tidy fairy tale, but it’s a real one.

For a long time, the Orlando Brown story looked like it might be a cautionary one. In 2026, it reads more like a second act — quieter than his Disney fame, but built to last.