Shea Curry (born 1972 or 1973) is an American actress best known on film for portraying Brigitte, the lady’s maid, in The Princess Diaries 2: Royal Engagement (2004). Alongside acting, she later built a second lane as a jewelry designer, turning a set-side hobby into her own brand.
Early years
Curry is a native of Hattiesburg, Mississippi. She is the daughter of James and Kathy Curry, and she has three younger siblings (two brothers and a sister). She attended Hattiesburg High School, performing in productions there and with the Hattiesburg Civic Light Opera.
In 1991, she was selected as part of the all-star cast at Mississippi’s state drama festival and was Forrest County’s representative in Mississippi’s Young Woman of the Year competition. She later graduated from Marymount Manhattan College on a full scholarship—an early signal that her path wasn’t just ambition, but talent that institutions were willing to back.
Career
Curry’s career reflects a working actor’s reality: stage, television guest roles, and the occasional film part that becomes the “most-known-for” credit. On the theatre side, she appeared in The Little Prince at the Promenade Theatre in New York and performed in Broadway productions and major stage works including Show Boat (noted as opposite Cloris Leachman and Len Cariou), West Side Story, Can’t Stop Dancin’, and Evening with Charles Strouse.
A key stage milestone: she received a Garland Award nomination for Best Actress in a Play (2001) for her role as Blue in Beirut. That nod matters because it frames her not just as a performer who books work, but as someone recognized for performance quality.
On television, Curry’s first appearance was on NBC’s One World in 1998. She later popped up across a wide range of series—Malcolm in the Middle, Lucky, Days of Our Lives, Grounded for Life, and Las Vegas—building the kind of résumé that comes from consistently being ready to step into different worlds and tones on short notice.
She was also involved in the American version of The IT Crowd (filming noted as February 16, 2007), playing a character named Emily opposite Joel McHale, and later appeared in The Hard Times of RJ Berger (2010) as Jenni. In October 2011, she stepped into reality TV as a contestant on Lifetime’s Project Accessory.
Jewelry design
Curry’s jewelry work started in a very actor way: downtime on a set. While filming The Princess Diaries 2, she used breaks to make jewelry pieces to give to other women in the cast. What began as “a fun little hobby” turned into trunk shows, then requests from friends, and eventually into a business: Shameless Jewelry.
The brand reflects her stated aesthetic—“statement pieces” built around a “good girl/bad girl” contrast. Much of the work is described as pewter plated with gold or sterling silver, a practical-material approach that still aims for boldness and personality rather than delicate minimalism.
What she’s “about” as a career
Curry’s story is a classic hybrid: theatre-trained performer who keeps booking TV, lands a memorable studio-film role, then turns a creative side skill into an actual business. Not a reinvention out of desperation—more like an expansion, using the same showmanship and eye for character, just translated into design.
