Moon Zappa was born in New York City, the eldest child of Gail and musician Frank Zappa. She has three younger siblings: Dweezil, Ahmet, and Diva. Zappa's father was of Sicilian, Greek-Arab, and French ancestry, and her mother was of French, Irish, and mostly Danish ancestry. Zappa attended Oakwood School in North Hollywood, California. She married Paul Doucette, former drummer and current rhythm guitarist for American pop group Matchbox Twenty, in June 2002. They have one child. They divorced in early 2014. Following the death of Zappa's mother, Gail, in October 2015, it was revealed that her siblings Ahmet and Diva were given control of the Zappa family trust with shares of 30% each, while Moon and her brother Dweezil were given smaller shares of 20% each. Speaking to the Los Angeles Times in 2016, Zappa called it "the most hideous shock of life." As beneficiaries only, Moon and Dweezil will not see any money from the trust until it is profitable—in 2016, it was "millions of dollars in debt"—and must seek permission from Ahmet, the trustee, to make money from their father's music or merchandise bearing his name.
Career
Zappa first came to public attention in 1982 at the age of 14, when she appeared on her father's hit single "Valley Girl." The song featured Moon's monologue in "valleyspeak", slang terms popular with teenage girls in the San Fernando Valley, Los Angeles. "Valley Girl" was Frank Zappa's biggest hit in the United States, and popularized phrases from the lyric such as "grody to the max" and "gag me with a spoon." The song appeared on her father's 1982 album Ship Arriving Too Late to Save a Drowning Witch. "Valleyspeak" would spawn similar language growth and is today known as high rising terminal speech. In the mid-1980s, Zappa and her brother Dweezil were frequent guest VJs on MTV. She sang on Dweezil's songs "My Mother Is a Space Cadet," b/w "Crunchy Water" in 1982 and "Let's Talk About It" from the album Havin' a Bad Day in 1986. As a teenager, Zappa acted in the television series CHiPs, The Facts of Life, and the film Nightmares. While still 18, she was a technical consultant and appeared in several episodes of Fast Times. As an adult, she has worked as a stand-up comic, magazine writer, and actress, appearing in the films National Lampoon's European Vacation and Spirit of '76, the television sitcomNormal Life, and The Super Mario Bros. Super Show. Zappa appeared as a niqab-clad Muslim woman in an episode of Curb Your Enthusiasm, as Ted Mosby's cousin Stacy in an episode of How I Met Your Mother, and on an episode of Roseanne. Most recently, Zappa was the voice of Mrs. Lamber on FOX Broadcasting'sAnimation Domination High-Def series High School USA!. In 2000, Zappa appeared as guest vocalist on Kip Winger's third solo albumSongs from the Ocean Floor. She is the author of the novel America, the Beautiful, published in 2001. She has also written for The New York Times. In a 2016 interview with the Los Angeles Times, Zappa said she was working on a book about growing up in her "crazy house."
