Matthew Lawrence

Lawrence was born on February 11, 1980, in Abington Township, Montgomery County, Pennsylvania to Donna Lynn (née Shaw), a personnel manager and former elementary school teacher, and Joseph Lawrence Mignogna Jr., an insurance broker.^[2] His family's surname was changed to Lawrence from Mignogna when he was a toddler. The middle-born of three boys, Lawrence has two brothers, Joey and Andrew, both of whom are also actors.^[3][4] He attended classes at Abington Friends School.

Lawrence began acting in the mid-1980s, playing Danny Carrington in Dynasty. He studied acting at HB Studio^[5] in New York City. Lawrence continued as a child actor through the early 1990s, appearing in many television and feature film roles, including the Robin Williams comedy Mrs. Doubtfire (1993) and the mid-1990s television series Superhuman Samurai Syber-Squad. He maintained starring roles in Brotherly Love, which starred his real-life brothers, and in Boy Meets World, in which Lawrence played Jack Hunter. Lawrence also appeared alongside Christopher Lloyd in Angels in the Endzone and starred in the Disney English dub version of Kiki's Delivery Service with Kirsten Dunst and Phil Hartman in 1998.

In 2011, Lawrence guest-starred on his brother's sitcom, ABC Family's Melissa & Joey.^[6] Four years later, Lawrence reprised his role as Jack Hunter in the series Girl Meets World, a spin-off/sequel of Boy Meets World.^[7]

Lawrence competed on the twenty-fourth season of Worst Cooks in America, the show's seventh celebrity edition titled That's So '90s, which aired in April and May 2022.^[8]

In February 2023, the three Lawrence brothers launched a podcast, titled Brotherly Love, centered around rewatches of the sitcom. It was launched through PodCo, a podcast studio launched by actress Christy Carlson Romano and focused on rewatches of completed television series by their former actors.^[9]

In 2025, Lawrence competed in season thirteen of The Masked Singer as "Paparazzo" which resembles a camera-headed figure that features a lightbulb that flashes randomly on his mask. Lawrence was eliminated in "Lucky 6: Merging of The Masks".^[10]

Lawrence's singing debut was in 1986, when he and his brother Joey performed at the 1986 Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade. Lawrence sang at the 1991 Macy's Parade as well. Other musical performances can be found on two Gimme a Break! episodes, "Nell's Secret Admirer" and "The Window; Part 1"; two Brotherly Love episodes, "A Roman Holiday" and "Art Attack"; and on Boy Meets World. In the 2021 film Mistletoe Mixup, he performed "O Holy Night" with his brothers Joey and Andrew. Lawrence also played guitar on several of his earlier performances.

In 2017, Lawrence started a band with Joey and Andy called Still Three. That February, they released their debut single "Lose Myself".^[11]

Lawrence briefly dated his Boy Meets World co-star Danielle Fishel.^[12] He was engaged to actress Heidi Mueller from 2004 to 2006.^[13] Lawrence began dating professional dancer Cheryl Burke in February 2007 and remained in a relationship with her until their breakup in 2008. The pair reunited in 2017 and became engaged on May 3, 2018.^[14] They wed in San Diego, California on May 23, 2019.^[15] After a prolonged estrangement exacerbated by COVID-19, Burke filed for divorce on February 18, 2022.^[16] The divorce was finalized on September 19.^[17] In late 2022, Lawrence began dating Chilli of the R&B group TLC.^[18][19]

In April 2023, Lawrence revealed in a Brotherly Love podcast episode that he was sexually harassed by a director involved in a Marvel production and was fired by his agency when he walked out of the hotel room that they were in.^[20]