Lott In Life

Y&R’s Loren Lott is hitting her next stride on daytime

Loren Lott, who plays Y&R’s resident songbird, Ana Hamilton, was very young when her potential as a singer was discovered. “Before I could walk, the story goes that I started screaming when Whitney Houston’s ‘I Will Always Love You’ came on,” she recalls. “My mother didn’t know what was wrong, so she called my grandmother and she said, ‘Wait, turn off the music.’ When my mom turned it off, I stopped and then she turned it back on and I started hollering again. My grandmother said, ‘Oh, she’s gonna be a singer.’ I think I had to have some type of on-pitch screaming for her to realize that.”

As a child, Lott was “well taken care of and very spoiled,” she shares. “I would say my childhood was pretty easy-breezy. Life was very happy, even overly optimistic, because my mom is very positive. We went on vacation several times a year and she would work five jobs to afford our lifestyle of traveling, which was very humbling to see.”

Lott also grew up with a built-in protector — twin brother Evan. “Being a twin, I think, is a really special experience that few people would understand,” she offers. “You always have a friend. When I would arrive at a brand-new school, a brand-new anything, I always had somebody with me. I was never alone. I actually had to learn as an adult to separate myself from Evan and gain some independence, especially with my twin being a man, because he ended up doing a lot of things for me.”