Tamera Darvette Mowry-Housley (née Mowry) (born July 6, 1978) is an American actress, television personality, and former singer. She first gained fame for her teen role as Tamera Campbell on the ABC/WB sitcom Sister, Sister (opposite her twin sister Tia Mowry). She has also starred in the Disney Channel Original Movie Twitches and its sequel, Twitches Too, and played Dr. Kayla Thornton on the medical drama Strong Medicine. She next starred in a reality television series following her and her twin sister's lives, titled Tia & Tamera, which began airing on the Style Network in 2011 and ended in 2013 after three seasons. From 2013 to 2020, Mowry was one of the co-hosts of the syndicated daytime talk show The Real originally alongside Adrienne Bailon, Tamar Braxton, Loni Love and Jeannie Mai. She was on the Hallmark Channel show lost & found until its cancellation in August 2021.

Early life

Tamera Darvette Mowry was born in Gelnhausen in then-West Germany on July 6, 1978, to Darlene Renee Mowry (née Flowers), who later became her children's manager, and Timothy John Mowry, who became a custody officer/jailer with the City of Glendale Police Department when the family moved to California. She also has two younger brothers: actor Tahj Mowry and musician Tavior Mowry. Her father has British and Irish ancestry and her mother is of Afro-Bahamian descent. Mowry's parents met in high school, in Miami, Florida, both joining the U.S. Army and eventually reaching the rank of sergeant. Mowry has described her family as being both "close-knit" and "deeply religious," noting that the sisters became born-again Christians when they were eight years old.

Career

Music

Mowry and her sister, Tia, joined an R&B singing group in the early 1990s called Voices. The group debuted their first single, "Yeah, Yeah, Yeah!", in 1992 and it charted at No. 72 on the Billboard Hot 100. Mowry's mom Darlene removed the twins from the group after a disagreement with management prior to the release of their debut album.

Television

At the age of 12, the twins convinced their mother to move to California with them so they could pursue acting. She agreed, on the condition that they land an acting job within the first month of their stay. In 1990, their family moved to California permanently, settling in Los Angeles, and she and her sister began appearing in commercials and small roles. Mowry and her twin sister, Tia, co-starred as the main characters in Sister, Sister, a television show that aired from 1994 through 1999. Starring the two girls, Tamera Mowry played Tamera Campbell, who was adopted and separated from birth away from her twin sister. The show kickstarts from where the twins meet coincidentally in the mall. The comedy TV show shows the two sisters combining worlds with their adopted parents combining households. Tia, her twin, is intelligent and from inner-city Detroit while Tamera is the boy-crazy twin from the suburbs. Tamera and Tia worked in the 2005 Disney Channel film Twitches. In 2013, Mowry became a co-host of the syndicated daytime talk show The Real alongside Adrienne Bailon, Tamar Braxton, Loni Love, Jeannie Mai. After premiering on July 15, The Real was picked up to series the following year. In 2018, Mowry and her co-hosts won the Daytime Emmy Award for Outstanding Entertainment Talk Show Host for their work. In July 2020, Mowry announced that after six seasons she would be leaving the show. She returned to the show as a guest on December 8, 2020, that same day, Mowry joined Home & Family as a new family member on the show, succeeding Paige Hemmis. In 2021, Mowry competed in season 5 of The Masked Singer as "Seashell". She was eliminated on Week 7 alongside Bobby Brown as "Crab". This show also revived Tamera being a singer. In the same year, it was announced that Mowry and former White House Executive Pastry Chef Bill Yosses would be hosting Baker's Dozen, a baking competition show for Hulu. Throughout 2021-2024 Mowry has starred in various holiday and non holiday Hallmark movies such as, The Santa Stakeout, Girlfriendship, Inventing The Christmas Prince, and Haunted Harmony Mysteries: Murder in G Major.

Other ventures

Mowry and her twin sister, Tia, started a project called Need Brand as they entered motherhood. Milky! and Stretchy! are two of the products that can cater to motherhood. Milky! is a 2.5 oz. bottle with all organic ingredients that can help mothers produce milk. Stretchy! is a stretch mark cream for post-operation scars. Another sibling project of theirs was a four-book series called Twintuition: Double Vision and Twintuition: Double Trouble. She signed an overall deal with Crown Media in 2020.

Personal life

On May 15, 2011, after almost six years of dating, she married Fox News correspondent Adam Housley, in California's Napa Valley. Their first child Aden, a son, was born on November 12, 2012. Their second child Ariah, daughter, was born on July 1, 2015. The couple owns a home in Napa Valley, near his family's bus terminal. Mowry's niece Alaina Maria Housley was among the victims of the mass shooting at the Borderline Bar and Grill in Thousand Oaks, California, on November 7, 2018.

Filmography

Film

Television

Music videos

Awards and nominations

Daytime Emmy Award

NAACP Image Award

Nickelodeon Kids' Choice Award

Note: The year given is the year of the ceremony

People's Choice Award

Teen Choice Award

Young Artist Award