What Happened to Willa Ford? Her First Album in Decades in 2026

If you were anywhere near a radio in 2001, you remember the hook: “I Wanna Be Bad.” Willa Ford was the bottle-blonde pop provocateur with the smirk and the attitude, primed to be the next big thing. And then — almost as fast as she arrived — she was gone. No farewell tour, no dramatic flameout, just a slow fade from the charts. So whatever happened to her? The answer is one of the most genuinely uplifting comeback stories in pop right now. Here’s where Willa Ford is in 2026.

01Profile

Full name

Amanda Lee Williford (known professionally as Willa Ford)

Born

January 22, 1981 (45 years old)

Birthplace

Ruskin, Florida, USA

Occupation

Singer-songwriter, interior designer, actress

Best known for

"I Wanna Be Bad" (2001), the album "Willa Was Here" (2001)

Latest release

"amanda" (2026), her first album in over 20 years

Here’s a fun detail that turns out to mean everything: the title of her 2026 comeback album, “amanda,” is her actual first name. After a career spent as “Willa Ford,” she came back as herself — and as you’ll see, that’s the whole point.

02The Rise: Pop’s Bad Girl of 2001

From the Tampa Bay Children’s Choir to a record deal

Amanda Williford grew up in Ruskin, Florida, and started performing young — she joined the Tampa Bay Children’s Choir at age eight. She first chased a recording career around 1999 under the name Mandah, then rebranded as Willa Ford to stand out. By the early 2000s, the teen-pop boom was at full throttle, and labels were hunting for the next breakout star. Willa, with her edge and her confidence, looked like a strong bet.

”I Wanna Be Bad” makes her a star

In 2001, she released “I Wanna Be Bad,” a snarling, hook-heavy single featuring rapper Royce da 5’9”. It climbed to No. 22 on the Billboard Hot 100 and became inescapable on MTV and Top 40 radio that summer. The accompanying debut album, “Willa Was Here,” reached No. 56 on the Billboard 200. In a sea of squeaky-clean pop princesses, Willa Ford positioned herself as the rebellious one — the girl who said the quiet part out loud.

For a moment, she was exactly where she wanted to be: a young pop star with a hit, a record deal, and the spotlight she’d worked toward since childhood.

The follow-up that never came

But pop is a brutal business, and timing is everything. Subsequent singles never matched the success of “I Wanna Be Bad,” and planned follow-up records didn’t break through the way her debut had. The momentum that propels a one-hit moment into a lasting career simply didn’t materialize. Within a few years, Willa Ford the pop star quietly receded from the charts — and then, eventually, from music altogether.

03Stepping Away From Music

Rather than burn out in public, Willa pivoted. Over the next several years she stayed in the entertainment world, just not as a recording artist.

• 2006Competes on Season 3 of "Dancing with the Stars," partnered with Maksim Chmerkovskiy, reintroducing herself to a mainstream TV audience.
• 2007Plays Anna Nicole Smith in a television movie about the late model's life — a dramatic role that showed a different side of her.
• 2009Appears in the "Friday the 13th" film reboot and hosts reality and MTV-style programming.
• 2010sGradually shifts away from performing entirely, channeling her energy into a new business behind the scenes.
• 2019Surfaces on E!'s "Flip It Like Disick," now firmly established in the design world rather than the music one.

For more than 20 years, that was the story. The “I Wanna Be Bad” singer became a footnote in early-2000s pop nostalgia — the kind of artist you’d suddenly remember when the song came on a throwback playlist and wonder, “Wait, where did she go?” The honest answer, as she’d later put it, was that she’d been busy building a real life.

04Building a Life Offstage

A second act in interior design

The reinvention that defined Willa’s long absence wasn’t another entertainment gig — it was entrepreneurship. She founded WFord Interiors, a home interior design business, and grew it into a genuine career over more than a decade. This wasn’t a celebrity side hustle; it was the thing she did every day, the empire she built far from any stage.

“For 13 years, I’ve built an empire with interior design.” — Willa Ford, Digital Journal interview, 2026

Family first

Alongside the business, she built a family. After a first marriage to NHL star Mike Modano (2007–2012), she married former NFL linebacker Ryan Nece in 2015. The couple welcomed a son in 2016 and, in 2025, a daughter via gestational carrier. For years, motherhood and her design work were the center of her world — and music, for the longest time, simply wasn’t part of the plan.

That she could now be all three things at once — mother, entrepreneur, and musician — is something she clearly doesn’t take for granted.

“I literally dropped my son to school this morning, I fed my baby, and I got on my interior design calls. … I couldn’t have been a mother, an entrepreneur, and a musician, but now I can.” — Willa Ford, Digital Journal interview, 2026

05What She Is Doing Now

The comeback nobody saw coming

In 2023, Willa joined a longtime friend for songwriting sessions — and rediscovered a passion she’d set aside. According to coverage of her return, the process unfolded alongside real health challenges, but instead of derailing her, the music became a lifeline. On October 17, 2025, after roughly two decades away, she released a new single called “Burn Burn,” her first new music in over 20 years.

“Burn Burn” wasn’t just a nostalgia play. She’s described how a fun pop song gradually grew into something deeper — a track about letting go of the false stories we tell ourselves. It set the tone for everything that followed.

”amanda”: her first album in over 20 years

On March 6, 2026, Willa released “amanda,” her sophomore album and first full-length record since 2001’s “Willa Was Here.” The 12-track LP — named, again, after her real first name — moves between pure pop pleasure and raw self-reflection. Standout tracks include “Love4Life,” an upbeat ode to her husband Ryan Nece, “Burn Burn,” her anthem of self-salvation, and “Carousel,” an ambitious cut whose lush arrangement she’s compared to “Pet Sounds”-era Beach Boys.

Outlets including Digital Journal and antiMusic covered the release, framing it as a bold rebirth — a reclaiming of a dream she’d nearly lost. For Willa, the record clearly meant more than a return to the charts.

“I wanted it to tell my story. … I wanted to speak hope into people, but then, I also wanted people to hear my pain. This record was my saving grace.” — Willa Ford, Digital Journal interview, 2026

Still bad, still building

The remarkable thing is that she hasn’t traded one life for another — she’s stacked them. She’s still running her interior design business, still raising her two kids, and now releasing music she actually wants to make on her own terms. Her own framing of this chapter says it best: she’s finally stepping back into what she calls her first love.

“I’m finally stepping into my true gift, which is what I was born to do, and that’s my first love … music!” — Willa Ford, Digital Journal interview, 2026

You can follow the comeback in real time on her official channels — her Instagram bio currently reads “Still bad 💋 New album, amanda, out now 🤍,” which is about the most on-brand sentence imaginable.

06Summary

Willa Ford’s story isn’t a cautionary tale about a pop star who fizzled — it’s about a woman who walked away from the machine, built a full life on her own terms, and then chose to come back to music when it could finally be a joy instead of a job.

The girl who wanted to be bad in 2001 grew up, built an empire, raised a family, and came back as Amanda — the realest version of herself. Two decades later, the comeback isn’t about recapturing the past. It’s proof that it’s never too late to return to a first love.