Cleo de Nile/Generation 1

"If I gave apologies, I would give you one right now."

- Cleo de Nile in "Here Comes Treble"

Cleo de Nile is a 2010-introduced and all-around character. She is a mummy and a student at Monster High. She's the queen bee at school, and the most popular girl, as her status as an undead Egyptian princess gives her relevancy over the others. Daughter of Ramses de Nile, she was second in heir to be a pharaoh, if it wasn't for the fact that she died and she has an older sister Nefera de Nile. She lives in a palace-like temple with hundreds of loyal servants in the middle of New Salem.

Portrayers
In the music video for the Monster High Fright Song, while Cleo de Nile herself does appear in animation, she is also cast with several other character analogues who received creative interpretation by the video crew. The mummy girl is played by Megan Mackenzi.

In the English version of the cartoon, Cleo's voice is provided by Salli Saffioti, who also happens to provide the voice for Clawdeen Wolf, in "Scaris: City of Frights" their voice was provided by Salli Saffioti Under The Alias Celeste Henderson.

In the Latin American version of the cartoon, Cleo's voice is provided by Rocío Bermúdez in the first and second volume, but since the third volume her voice is provided by Valentina Souza.

She was portrayed by Megan Nicole in the YouTube video of the Monster High special song "Digital Monsters, We are proud".

History
Cleo was a princess of Egypt over 5,800 years ago and raised to a wealthy royal household, young and happy. One day, a delegation from a far-off country arrived and gifted her sister, Nefera, a corpse flower that was claimed to be a rare treasure only fit for royalty. However, one day her uncle committed a coup d'état that had been perfectly planned, leading her family to be adviced to flee underground. Despite that the queen had yet to join them, Ramses de Nile already had the family wrapped with magic cloth that would keep them safe while their loyal followers would deal with the usurper. What they didn't know was that they had no loyal followers left and that the magic cloth was meant to keep them asleep forever. Nonetheless, they woke up after 1,300 years, only to find the queen still missing and themselves trapped within the hiding spot. As Ramses began to spend his days looking for an exit, Cleo pessimistically enjoyed the luxuries of their prison, but Nefera was hit badly by both the loss of her mother and her future and spent most of her time talking to her corpse flower, that she'd taken with her. An earthquake eventually damaged the prison enough to create a hole, allowing sunlight in. As the family rejoiced, the corpse flower awakened from her slumber and introduced herself as Amanita Nightshade. She explained what truly happened during the coup d'état, revealed that the family had been asleep for 1,300 years, and elaborated that they now no longer fit the human world but must find their place in monster society. When a caravan passed by, the De Niles' shouting was not enough to draw attention, but Amanita was thin enough to get through the gap and promised to return with help. She never did and the family eventually got out on their own.

About 4,500 years later, the family has relocated to New Salem, Boonighted States of Scaremerica. Though the throne of old is gone, the family has access to a large collection of magical artifacts that only works for them and over 10,000 servants,  most of which apparently ushabti. Cleo has easily adapted to her monster life, enjoying the riches of her temple and enjoying the life of an high-schoolar at Monster High, the prestiged school of the Boo World, eventually finding interest Clawd Wolf, the co-captain of the basketball team, only to later dump him for his co-captain Deuce Gorgon, where she found love, that made her ascend in the social pyramid, making people realize that she was also a princess, making her incredibly popular, enough to join the fearleading squad led by her sister, that, because of this, elected her for captain when she graduated. Since then she's been either famous for her success and status or infamous for her less-than-kind personality.

Personality
Cleo is extremely royal, so she expects everyone to treat her like it. Usually, her attitude is selfish, spoiled, and arrogant; she can't be entirely blamed for her behavior, because it's shown that she was raised to be like this. She is extremely competitive with other ghouls, especially Toralei Stripe. But deep down, Cleo's a very caring, kind, and thoughtful ghoul who cares about her friends.

As royalty, Cleo is unsurprisingly the Queen of the student body, though few know her confidence is not as solid as she makes it seem to be: she is easy to be taken by the insecurity of not being fit for leadership, had it not been for the support of her friends from the Fear Squad, the loyalty of her BFF Ghoulia, and the comfort of her boyfriend Deuce's embrace, Cleo's crown would have been crushed a long time ago. Cleo is aware she is lucky to have found people around her that allow her to flourish and while not always the most tactful, she is very protective of her crew.

She can work well with the others if they share a common goal, in which case she becomes the de facto leader of the ghouls. She's a highly effective organizer and a leader who will deviate between acting selfishly and selflessly, depending on her mood, which is easy to alter, as she is a tad tempered, when fueled, and violent if upset. Additionally, she is stubborn and will only follow her rules if she feels like it, and she lacks when it comes to learning from her mistakes, making the same mistakes of dodging responsability and attempting to control others. It doesn't help she has access to limited amounts of magic, through her magical amulets.

Appearance
Cleo de Nile is in the possession of black hair, which is commonly enhanced with golden highlights, although she also picks blue, teal, and/or purple as additional colors. She favors her hair to be long and hang loose, but she isn't hesitant to switch it up with a shoulder-length haircut. She has tan skin and blue eyes, always surrounded by thick black winged eyeliner, and wears a gem on her right cheek that is blue in most of her ensembles.

While Cleo can get creative with her look, there is one fashion rule she can't break: she always has to have at least one piece of burial wrapping on her, lest she disappears into dust. Fortunately for her, she is allowed to apply the burial wrapping in whatever way suits her. Sometimes, she wears an entire jumpsuit with limb warmers made of the material. At other times, the burial wrappings are worked into a simple waist wrap easily forgotten among the rest of the look. Cleo's standard colors of choice to dress in are shades of yellow, including gold, which is her favorite color, and anything in the range blue-to-teal. She has also experimented with purple and red, but those are limited to specific periods. While not dress-shy, Cleo prefers to step into a pair of pants, usually as part of the aforementioned jumpsuit. As part of an Ancient Egyptian Royal Family, Cleo commonly works large gems into her look, as well as scarabs, lotusses, snakes, and triangles (pyramids).

Family
Cleo lives with her father, and older sister, Nefera de Nile.

Her dad's name is Ramses de Nile, and he's an antiques dealer. Cleo and Nefera's mother is mentioned in her Gloom and Bloom Diary It is unknown what happened to her but it is known she was left behind when the DeNile family went under the conspiracy, being subentende that she might have died. In The Ghoul Next Door, Nefertiti is said to be the girls' aunt. She has a tough relationship with her father and sister, though the case is way more serious with the latter.

Friends
Cleo's within the most popular students at Monster High, a status that has adquired her a vast list of followers, but her list of close friends isn't too big, as she initially faced friendships has despensible, as long as she's treated like she best pleases. She's sometimes bossy and demanding to the other ghouls, but she's also shown to be afraid of opening herself up to deeper friendships and making herself seem vulnerable. As the series has progressed, she has mellowed out and become much nicer and GFFs with the other ghouls.

So, she finds a best friend in Ghoulia Yelps, and they even plan their school schedules together. Ghoulia often serves as Cleo's personal assistant ("Copy Canine", "Mad Science Fair"), and Cleo forgets at times to give Ghoulia respect, usually taking advantage of her submisive nature and her smarts. Despite this, she has learned how to treat Ghoulia like a friend rather than a servant, specifically after "Fright On!". The two trust each other and do almost everything together, Ghoulia helps Cleo with academic achievings while Cleo protects Ghoulia from any harm and makes sure she's "someone", though Ghoulia really couldn't care less about her popularity.

As captain of the Fearleading Squad, she's also quite close with her fellow cheerleaders, Frankie Stein, Draculaura and Clawdeen Wolf, sometimes Lagoona Blue.

Out of the three permanent members, Cleo seems to be closer to Clawdeen, the most mature of the three, something she respects. However the two didn't start all that good. Cleo used to date Clawdeen's brother, Clawd Wolf, who she dumped, leaving a grudge between the two divas. Clawdeen didn't trust Cleo and Cleo looked down on lowly Clawdeen in their begginings, however when the two grew closer they discovered they have more in common then they previously thought. Despite Clawdeen not standing Cleo's bossy nature and her dramatic reactions, the two are popular and fans of high fashion, fierce and confident, and work very well together. So much that Clawdeen has become sorts of a inspiration to Cleo, with her hard work and free creativity.

Cleo can get easily furstrated with both Frankie's and Draculaura's antics, both being the most immature of the crew, with overly excitement and positivity in them, which Cleo appreciates but also gets slightly annoyed with. She also had a hard time to adapt o the clumsiness of the two, who to top it off weren't the most skilled cheerleaders to begin with. However, she will do anything to protect them and loves them with all her heart. Like with Clawdeen, Frankie's and Cleo's mutual relationship didn't have smooth begginings, with Frankie, accidently, embarrasing her twice, once by insinuating her boyfriend was actually Deuce.

Lagoona is tge other member of their clique that is close to Cleo. Though interactions between the two are rare, Lagoona is just as sympathetic and friendly towards her as she is to the next one, though Cleo is probably the one out of the main six she is the most hostile towards, though not in big amounts, sometimes being sassy and lecturing her, though only when Cleo is unconsiderate. As the voice of reason and the most down to earth of the gang, Cleo definetly trusts her and enjoys her company too.

Among Cleo's less close friendships lie Jinafire Long, her wise, advice-giving roomate, that is living in her palace while the exchange program carries on; Abbey Bominable, her foreign friend who she kind of thinks lowly of but still adores, especially as a competition partner; and Twyla, who goes against her expectations of being popular during the high school hear but whose selflessness has helped Cleo at time, usually giving her advice and wise words.

Rivals
Despite her friendships, Cleo's popularity and personality has gained her several nemesis too, the most prominent one being Toralei Stripe and the werecat twins, Purrsephone and Meowlody. It all started when the werecats swore to make use of what they learned in delinquent prison, to overthrow those who rule, this being Cleo, the queen bee. Then, when Nefera chose Cleo over Toralei for squad captain, despite the difference in experience that would otherwise benefit Toralei, the rivalrly between the two sparked for real, and the werecats gave up on the squad to make their own, to rival Cleo's yet inexisting squad. What they weren't expecting was the success of the replacements Cleo found, and were tempted to join again, though Cleo refused. Since then they're faithfull to their promise to make Cleo's, and the fearsquad's life a living nightmare, playing pranks and framing them on a daily bases. Cleo and Toralei act hostile to one another and constantly insult each other, cat fighting usually and throwing shade at each other, a toxic relationship of cat vs. rat. However, the two have shown signs of harmony when working together, and it is implied by Neighthan Rot that their problem is the lack of communication. Despite this, they can't stand each other no matter what.

Gory Fangtell is another opponent. Fresh from Belfry Prep, where Gory was the captain of the cheerleading squad, she's not willing to give up her status, and developed a lowkey rivalry against Cleo, when her ambitions were denied.

Amanita Nightshade, her fellow "friend", also has a lowkey rivalry, though she is much more subtle about it. She's sly with her insults, acting like she doesn't know what's going on. She has no specific reason to torment Cleo, she just enjoys it and the chaos it brings. Cleo can't stand her however, and for valid reasons, due to their unfortunate past, and because Amanita's "oblivious" facade annoys her to the core. She has suffered enough because of her and isn't willing to forgive her that easy or take up with her, though she has stated she'll try.

Pet
Cleo de Nile's pet is a snake named Hissette, whose attitude reflects Cleo's. In the Monster High book series, Deuce gave Hissette to Cleo as a gift, saying she was his mom's 'first gray hair', yet in her diary, it was stated that it was given to her as a gift from Egypt. In the books, Cleo also has seven cats named Chisisi, Bastet, Akins, Ebonee, Ufa, Usi, and Miu-Miu. This is a reference to how cats were worshipped by people and cherished and treasured, especially by royalty, in Ancient Egypt.

Romance
Cleo's dating Deuce Gorgon, whom makes her feel at ease and makes her want to be a better person. She used to date Clawdeen Wolf's older brother Clawd, but according to Ghoulia it was a messy breakup. She said that it doesn't help that Cleo started dating Deuce the next day. The relationship between Clawd and Cleo, however, was only the result of C.A. Cupid's arrows. Even if Deuce occasionally gets tired of her competitive personality, his feelings for her are true. It states in C.A. Cupid's SSS diary that Cleo and Deuce started dating on November 1st.

Timeline

 * July 11, 2008: Mattel requests the trademark for Cleo de Nile.
 * May 05, 2010: The Monster High website goes live, featuring Cleo de Nile's profile.
 * May 05, 2010: Cleo de Nile's profile art is revealed.
 * May 05, 2010: Cleo de Nile makes her animated debut in the Higher Deaducation commercial.
 * May 05, 2010: Cleo de Nile makes her 2D cartoon debut in "Jaundice Brothers".
 * Early July, 2010: Cleo de Nile's debut doll is released as part of the Basic series.
 * Early July, 2010: Cleo de Nile makes her diary debut in her Basic diary.
 * September 01, 2010: Cleo de Nile makes her Monster High book debut in Monster High.
 * Early December, 2010: Cleo de Nile's debut plushie is released as part of the Friends series.
 * February 12, 2012: Cleo de Nile makes her 3D cartoon debut in "Why Do Ghouls Fall in Love?".
 * September 05, 2012: Cleo de Nile makes her Ghoulfriends book debut in Ghoulfriends Forever.
 * November 05, 2014: Cleo de Nile makes her anime debut in "The Golden Cleo de Nile".