She went from playing a teen on the Upper East Side to a Hollywood leading lady: Blake Lively's life and career in pictures
If you were a teen growing up in the 2010s, Gossip Girl was one of the 'It' shows of TV.
The series catapulted Blake Lively, who played the fashionable Serena van der Woodsen, to a whole new level of fame.
After starring on the show for six seasons, Lively went from teen TV star to a Hollywood leading actress, starring in everything from A Simple Favor to her latest drama, It Ends With Us.
And with a famous family connection, movie-making was in her blood.
Over the years Lively's personal life has been just as headline-worthy as her career, from the star's marriage to fellow actor Ryan Reynolds, her friendships with A-listers like Taylor Swift, and more recently, her legal battle with former co-star and director Justin Baldoni.
Let's take a look back at the Lively's life and career over the decades.
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Even before she was a famous actress, this little girl already had a glimpse of what life in Hollywood looked like.
Blake Lively, born in 1987, grew up as one of five kids to acting coach Elaine Lively and actor Ernie Lively.
One of her sisters Robyn you might even know from The Karate Kid movie franchise and Teen Witch.
"I have a big, close, loving family, and they're all from the South, but because so many of them are actors, everyone was very normal about it. It was just like any job to them," she said in 2010 for a profile with Interview Magazine
"They always came home and talked about it around the dinner table the way any family talks about work, but it wasn't anything special."
While she was growing up, her dad was starring in the likes of The Man in the Moon and The Legend of Cryin' Ryan. And it seems the acting gene doesn't fall far from the tree.
When she was around 11, Lively followed in the footsteps of her dad and siblings and got into acting.
Her first-ever role was as Trixie in the 1998 musical film Sandman, directed by none other than her dad Ernie (pictured here).
But her breakthrough role would come years down the track...
In 2005, Lively started to be recognised as a star on her own when she was cast alongside American Ferrera, Alexis Bledel and Amber Tamblyn in the coming of age film The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants.
The movie follows four friends who pass around the same pair of denim jeans as they spend their first summer apart.
Then aged about 18, Lively played Bridget in the film that would go on to be a classic for teen girls everywhere.
Lively landed a lead role on the teen drama series Gossip Girl in 2007, starring alongside Leighton Meester, Chace Crawford, Penn Badgley and Ed Westwick, who would all become big names after six seasons of the show.
Speaking to Vanity Fair 10 years after the show premiered, Lively recalled how after she was cast as Serena van der Woodsen she was scared of the attention that could come with the role.
"I'm actually a very shy person and the idea of losing my anonymity was one that was scary to me," she said.
"I remember saying when I read this script, 'Whoever does this will not be able to walk out of their house ever again and be the same as before they started this.' You could tell it was a cultural phenomenon. That was both exciting and thrilling, but also very scary."
While her character Serena was falling in love with Dan on-screen, Lively was falling for his real-life counterpart, Penn Badgley. They started dating officially around 2007.
It wasn't the first time a rising star had fallen for their on-screen love interest but Lively faced some challenges as a result.
"I was wearing the same clothes and doing fashion shoots, and dating the same person that my character was dating—or sometimes that person [Dan] was my brother, you never know with Serena—and because of that, what people were projecting onto me was that I was Serena," she recalled.
Speaking of dating her co-star, Lively added: "If [Badgley and I] were photographed walking down the street, they didn't know if it was a paparazzi shot or if it was a shot from the show."
Badgley and Lively reportedly dated for three years after meeting on the teen drama series.
The couple called it quits in 2010, but both stayed on the show until it wrapped in 2012. While the didn't end up together in real life, their characters got a happily ever after on Gossip Girl.
After wrapping the series, Lively pursued more roles in TV and made the move into films.
When people think of Lively's most memorable role, Green Lantern probably doesn't come to mind since it wasn't really a commercial hit. But the film still changed Lively's life forever – because of it, she met her future husband.
Lively met actor Ryan Reynolds on the set of the superhero flick in 2010, where she played his love interest.
She was still dating Badgley at the time and Reynolds was married to actress Scarlett Johansson, but both couples split within months of each other and rumours began to swirl that Lively and Reynolds on-screen chemistry might have bled into their real lives too.
As the pair did press for their movie, rumours began to swirl that Lively and Reynolds were more than just co-stars but the pair insisted there was nothing romantic between them at the time.
During a 2021 podcast appearance, Reynolds revealed the pair reconnected when they went on a double date – but with different people as their dates.
"We were friends and buddies, and then about a year and a half later, we actually went on a double date but we were dating separate people," he said.
The couple kept the start of their relationship very private and low-key, not wanting to ignite any more rumours about how they'd fallen in love or their past relationships.
Then in September 2012, they secretly tied the knot at Boone Hall Plantation in Mount Pleasant, South Carolina.
It wasn't until nearly two years later that they made their red carpet debut as a couple at the 2014 Met Gala, Reynolds dressed in a classic suit and Lively looking like Old Hollywood royalty in a glittering pink gown.
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