Blake Lively went from sweet, surfer chic to a bombshell fashionista and foodie! The actress was born in Los Angeles on August 25, 1987 into Hollywood royalty, with her father being an actor and director and her mother being a talent scout. She is the youngest of five children, all of whom have worked in the entertainment industry at some point. She wasn’t initially interested in acting and had dreams of attending Stanford University. But after pressure from her family, during her junior year of high school, she auditioned for a main role in the 2005 hit movie The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants, which was based on a popular book. Her performance earned her a Teen Choice Award for Breakout Movie Star. After filming Traveling Pants, she returned to high school, graduated in 2005, and then continued acting.
In 2007, Lively landed the role that put her on the map on The CW’s hit teen drama Gossip Girl. Her performance as Serena van der Woodsen brought her to the limelight, and her face was everywhere. A year later, she won two more Teen Choice Awards for Television Actress and Television Breakout Star for her role on the series. With her good looks, natural acting talent, and devoted fan base, it was not hard for her career to continue to grow. She landed roles in films including The Town, Green Lantern, Savages, The Age of Adeline, and most recently in The Shallows.
In a case of an on-screen romance leading to a real-life love, Blake Lively began dating Gossip Girl co-star Penn Badgley in 2007, but after three years together, the famous couple split. After their celebrity break-up, she was linked to movie stars Ryan Gosling and Leonardo Dicaprio, but neither of these relationships and love lasted. While filming Green Lantern, the actress met Ryan Reynolds, and although the movie didn’t do as well as expected, the on-screen pairing translated into another real-life celebrity romance for Lively. The pair quickly became inseparable; they secretly got married in an intimate celebrity wedding in September 2012 and now live in Bedford, New York. The happy celebrity couple welcomed their first child — a daughter named James — in December 2014 and have another celebrity baby on the way.
