Blake Lively has been one of our favorite actors since her Gossip Girl days. Growing up alongside Blake was, for many of us, like growing up with another best friend. We got to see the lives we wished we were leading played out on the television, movie screens, and on other media platforms. We love the way Blake takes on life with such positive energy and a wicked sense of humor. Not only is she a talented actor, but she’s so many other things too: an incredible mother, an entrepreneur, a determined worker, and an outspoken woman. (Plus, did we mention her hair?!)
But what do we really know about her? We don’t want to spoil the article, but there are some really fascinating facts about Blake Lively below. We’ve got it all compiled here for your reading pleasure — twenty fascinating facts about the beautiful Blake Lively that we’re sure you haven’t heard before. Plus, her surprising disappearance off of a social media platform has been revealed (and it’s definitely not what you thought it was). Read on and discover the twenty best facts about Blake Lively — who she is, where she’s going, and what she loves.
20 She’s Been Acting Forever, But She Didn’t Want To Be An Actor
Blake Lively is an incredibly well-known actor. You might think that she’s been working for it her whole life, but the opposite is true. In an interview she did with Radio Free, she explains that growing up with performance-loving parents didn’t give her the zest for acting like you think it would.
She tells Radio Free, “it was so much a part of my life that I never felt a desire for it. And it seemed like such a nightmare. That [was] the last thing in the world I want[ed] to do. And I trained my whole life to go to Stanford. And my brother Eric… He said, 'I think you're going to be an actress.' He [told] his agents, 'You have to start sending Blake out on auditions.' And I didn't want to make him mad because he's such a good brother, so I just went on auditions to appease him. And then after a few months of auditioning, I got Sisterhood.”
After that role, there was no looking back, and Blake Lively picked up gig after gig, falling in love with acting like so many do.
She must have had the genes for it all along because since then she's done tons of acting and continues to follow that career path.
19 She’s Not Just An Actor, She’s An Entrepreneur
Vogue did a story on Blake Lively’s entrepreneurial attempt at a website she called Preserve. She wanted it to curate artisanal stuff that she liked, basically. To go into more detail, Blake Lively wanted to put together a resource for millennials (and anyone else) devoted to preserving hand-crafted items. The website was meant to be a marketplace which held not only objects but their stories, as well as how-to guides. While Vogue also reports that Preserve was shut down shortly after its launch, Blake Lively had some good intentions with it. She told Vogue, “people used to love that they could go anywhere in the world and find that same cup of coffee. They could be in the most rural place and —surprise! — there’s a Starbucks.
But something’s shifted. People want to get back to the magic of smaller, special, and handmade. We grew up getting every bit of information we needed instantly. So we want to know the backstory; we want to know why something is the way it is. And if there’s no answer other than because it’s big, because it makes money, because it’s corporate — we don’t connect with that. People want things with meaning. I know that because I want that. This space doesn’t exist, so I’m creating it.” She also said that she’s excited to relaunch the website, but Vogue hasn’t given us any updates on that… Yet!
18 She’s Apprenticed Under Famous Chefs… For Fun
Where did the fascination with artisanal, handcrafted products come from? Well, it may come as no surprise that Blake Lively has a soft spot for food. In the Vogue interview about her website Preserve, her love of food is discussed. “Lively is a serious foodie,” Vogue says, “she has apprenticed for the day alongside chefs in restaurants from Barcelona to New Orleans and is, by all accounts, a pretty accomplished cook herself.” This apparently came from living in Manhattan, which has an active foodie culture.
If you love something it makes sense to pursue it, which is why Lively seeks out training in this discipline that she thinks of as more of a hobby than a career.
She told PRWeb that she was in love with Le Cordon Bleu’s course. She says her “dream as a passionate cook has been to go to Le Cordon Bleu. Never could my most incredible dream have lived up to the experience. The food, the lesson, the chef, the ingredients — all the best of the best. I see why Le Cordon Bleu is world-renowned. Now I only dream to have more time to go back to Le Cordon Bleu and spend months learning from the gods of food!"
17 AND She's A Cupcake Designer
Or rather, she, the famous person, made the cupcake a celebrity. This is a story that we grabbed from Refinery29, which is always up on the latest trends about both cupcakes and celebrities. It turns out that the multi-talented Blake Lively, foodie extraordinaire and an incredible actress, wanted to branch out and try something new. There was a cupcake store in Georgetown that decided to host the actress as a limited-edition cupcake designer. They wanted to do something good for the world, and something that would make both cupcake-lovers and Blake Lively-lovers come running, so they got Lively to design a whole cupcake!
Refinery29 writes, “this uber-sweet confection is decked out with graham cracker crumbs, dark chocolate cake, and a marshmallow frosting that — if we squint, and think like an artist — might be toasted just enough to invoke Lively's blonde locks.” They’re not wrong. The s’mores flavored cupcake was probably just as sweet as Lively, which makes us think that it was a match made in heaven. Refinery29 tops off the article with a sprinkle of good cheer as well, stating that “100% of the proceeds will go to Oxfam, the charity of Lively's choice.” What could be better?
16 Not To Mention Her Top-Secret Interior Design "Business"
According to Instagram, Blake Lively’s got a whole other side hustle that we didn’t know about. Architectural Digest recently released an article which talks about the details of Blake Lively’s side job. In the article, it discusses how she’s a lover of style and design and is often found designing her friends’ home — for free! We wonder if Blake Lively would redesign our place for free too if we asked her...?!
If you’ve seen any of her colorful, HomeSense-inspired house photos, you’ll know that Blake Lively has a love of all things homey.
That’s a sign of someone who’s doing it because they love it, after all. Doing something for free means it’s a true passion project; you’re doing it to feel satisfied, and because you can’t not do it! And the best part? Her Instagram captions for when she’s designing are the best. “Of all the bad decisions I’ve made, [interior designing] may be the most fun... Thank you to my daughters for unknowingly loaning me your clothes for 'fabric' inspo, thank you [at]dmitriyco for the stencils that are way too fun it’s not normal, thank you bathroom for having a loose tile that I could steal for more 'fabric' inspo...” The posts go on and on!
15 She’s Got Some Unique Relationship Advice…
It’s common knowledge now that Ryan Reynolds and Blake Lively are married. And their relationship is one of the best around. Not only are they so incredibly supportive of each other, but they aren’t afraid to troll each other. The couple that teases mercilessly on Instagram stays together, after all! Go check out their Instagram pages if you don’t believe us!
Blake Lively’s IG features loving pictures of Ryan Reynolds that exclusively talk about her hair, and Reynolds’ IG has some similar content. With such success going for them, we wanted to know what their secret is. Glamour magazine gave us some insight. Lively told Glamour, “in other relationships, if something came up, I would call my girlfriends or my sister, and say, 'Hey, this is what he did—what should I do?" Where with him, we were friends for two years before we were ever dating. And I treat him like my girlfriend. I’m like, 'Hey, this happened. It upset me. This is how I feel. What do I do?' And he does the same for me. He treats me like his best buddy.”
It sounds simple on paper. Who knew that the secret to a perfect relationship was to treat each other like… friends! Now that’s advice we can all use.
14 But She Doesn’t Want People To Think Everything Is Perfect
Blake Lively has become more and more outspoken about important issues as she’s grown up. Realizing that she can speak out about things and have an impact gives her an important power. She, in an interview with Glamour, decided to speak out about some issues that really get under her skin. One of those issues is the popularity of calling people’s lives, and women in general, ‘perfect’.
Blake Lively is keeping it real, and making sure we’re not missing any of the important facts.
She told Glamour, “it’s nonsense. It simplifies people. [People] have a desire to understand and control women. To do that, you have to paint them into this thing you can wrap your head around. But women are complex. It also is [a reminder] that what you see in the media is not real life. The night before an interview, I have complete anxiety: How is this person going to spin me? So when you read, 'Oh, she’s got a perfect life,' or 'Her life is crumbling'—they pick narratives for everyone. And the narratives stick.” It’s an important thing to keep in mind when we’re reading about celebrities. Oftentimes we do reduce relationships and people to “perfect”, when in reality that’s only a fraction of the story.
13 She Believes Honesty Is The Best Policy When It Comes To The Media
It’s not only relationships that are prone to the creative powers of the media. While many people already know that advertisements are often retouched or re-crafted, there are so many more people that are still comparing themselves to those beautiful photos we see in magazines. Blake Lively knows this and wants to combat the dishonesty that comes inherently in the media.
In an interview with Harper’s Bazaar that discusses the power and pitfalls of the online world, Lively sums things up nicely: “it’s fun to try on the trends and enjoy the fantasy aspect of fashion and beauty. But my dream is for all images to have a little asterisk next to them with a caption that reads, this photo has been retouched. Just so there’s a gentle reminder that, hey, this isn’t real life. Think of editorials or ads as a painting, an art form. I mean, that’s definitely not how we wake up looking every single day of our lives.” If you weren’t a fan of Blake Lively before, you will be now. How can you not appreciate her empowering attitude? Someone who’s often in the media, talking about changes the media should make… That’s power that will hopefully make an actual change!
12 She Recently Made A Dramatic Departure From Social Media
You’ve probably heard all about it by now — Blake deleted her Instagram! Ryan Reynolds is sad! Who is Emily Norton?! Don’t worry. None of it was real, as Australian reference News.com reported. They said it best when they wrote: “Blake Lively has left fans feeling confused after deleting her entire Instagram feed and unfollowing husband Ryan Reynolds. He's since spoken out in a radio interview to reveal he’s 'very sad' about the social media dumping. It transpires that Blake’s vanishing act is all just an elaborate publicity stunt for her upcoming mystery thriller, A Simple Favor.”
That’s right. All that confusion and stress definitely got people talking, and for a very good cause. Everything is back to normal now, as Hello Giggles reported that Lively's Instagram feed is back on track.
We checked it out, and sure enough, there’s not only a trailer for her upcoming movie but also a fashionable outfit photo that she forgot to post a few weeks ago.
Looks like there was a silver lining after all the confusion.
Also, don’t worry about Ryan Reynolds… Hello Giggles made it clear that the couple is totally fine, and she refollowed him as soon as her Instagram account was back up.
11 And She’s Turning Heads With New Hair For A Different Role
All actors go through changes throughout their career. Not only is their job to portray different people, but they also tend to shake things up when it comes to Red Carpet looks and the premieres they have to attend. With Blake Lively, she’s got such a distinct style through being so willing to play with her look. Not only is she her own stylist, but she does it incredibly well and without fear of trying something and having it not work. Plus, that hair. She’s incredibly distinct when it comes to her hair, and she wears that shining golden crown with pride.
While one of her Instagram posts reveals that “Kids used to make fun of me in elementary school by calling me Big Bird (because I was 'too tall' and had 'yellow' hair),” she’s loving who she is now. Tall, blonde, and…incredibly versatile.
These photos above are for Blake Lively’s movie The Rhythm Section, which is being released in 2019. According to E! News, these looks are both for that upcoming movie. She’s posted another look where she’s in a sleek, black bob, which we are absolutely in love with. While these are just wigs, it wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world if Lively did want to play with her look. It seems like she can pull off anything!
10 She Married Ryan Reynolds Back In 2012
Daily Mail has been keeping us up to date on the deleting-Instagram controversy surrounding Blake Lively (which turned out to be a publicity stunt, as we’ve discussed). But they also have given us some good background on Blake Lively and Ryan Reynolds. You know that they’re together, but it seems hard to remember a time when they weren’t. How did they get together? Have they ever been apart?
The short answer is yes.
The long answer is given to us by Daily Mail, which says “Blake and Ryan first met when they were both cast as leads in Green Lantern in 2010. At the time, Ryan was married to Scarlett Johansson and Blake was in an on-off relationship with Gossip Girl co-star Penn Badgley, who ended things in September 2010…” If it feels like a match made by everything pure and good, that’s because it was.
They were definitely meant to be together, and “after dating for one year, Blake Lively and Ryan Reynolds had a secret wedding at the Boone Hall Plantation in South Carolina, which is where parts of 'The Notebook' was filmed.”
This ties back to the idea of being friends first. Knowing each other before starting a relationship was really the key to having it be successful, and they’re very successful together!
9 ...But He Says It Began With An Awkward Encounter
That success hasn’t always been there from the start, though. The same article which gave us information about their relationship timeline also gave us a fun anecdote, which, according to Cosmopolitan, Reynolds spoke about on Serious XM's Entertainment Weekly Deadpool special. He said, “about a year after Green Lantern had come and gone and we were both single we went on a double date – she was on a date with another guy and I was on a date with another girl – and it was like the most awkward date for the respective parties because we were just like fireworks coming across.”
It sounds like even the best relationships can start with an awkward encounter. It’s funny how those things work out, too. You think you’re meant to be with someone, then one day you realize that it was never meant to be. This type of situation can either lead to success or pain, depending on how you feel about the relationship in question. If you’re leaving a bad or unsuccessful situation, that could mean that you’ve got a much higher chance of having this new relationship go well. For Ryan Reynolds and Blake Lively, this relationship has gone very well.
8 Martha Stewart Saved Blake And Ryan’s Wedding
Let’s see… Blake Lively is a movie star, designer, sort-of chef… What else? Oh yeah, she’s basically best friends with Martha Stewart. (OK, best friends might be an exaggeration, but they definitely know each other.)
According to Vogue, Blake Lively has an old farmhouse in New York that’s located near Martha Stewart’s. Apparently Lively has always been a fan of Stewart, which isn’t shocking when you think about the fact that she’s passionate about a lot of the same things Martha’s passionate about. It’s lucky that they know each other if we look at the wedding disaster Ryan Reynolds and Blake Lively were faced with.
Lively told Vogue, “our wedding was becoming a disaster, and we didn’t know what to do, so we called Martha! She said, ‘Don’t worry. I’ll handle it.’ She sent her team down to save us. And then she called her friends who have a home in South Carolina and set us up at the most amazing getaway. This is the day of our wedding!”
What a dream come true for Lively as well — getting a personal friend-slash-homemaking-deity to save your wedding!
When you’ve had the entire Lively clan over for Easter, as Martha Stewart has, according to that same Vogue article, it doesn’t seem like a big deal to get a wedding back on track.
7 Her Family Is The Centre Of Her Life
With two incredibly successful people both working regularly, how do they manage to keep their professional careers afloat while still being so happy and prioritizing their home and relationship? It’s actually easier than you think. For Blake, her work isn’t necessarily the center of her life. While she loves her job, she told Glamour in an interview that that’s not actually what fulfills her.
In the interview, she goes on to describe: “I admire people who find that what fulfills them is their art or their work, but what fulfills both me and my husband is our family. Knowing that everything else comes second. We’ve each given up stuff we loved in order to not work at the same time. I’m fortunate to be in a place now where I get to find the material — a book or script — early and develop it. So I know ahead of time that I’m going to be working on this job at this time. And we can plan around it.”
If only we could all have that same privilege when it comes to working! Not only is she able to keep both of their careers organized around their family, Blake Lively is probably the super-mom that we all wish we could be. It might come as no surprise that her family is the center of her life, but we were definitely shocked that she prioritizes it over her career.
6 She Prioritizes And Supports The Safety Of All Children In Her Charity Work
It’s not just her family life that she loves and cherishes — her children are important to her, but she also believes in the safety of all kids everywhere. When talking with Glamour about the charity work she’s done, she mentions an issue that has been on her radar for ages.
Protecting children from unsafe individuals is a cause that she works tirelessly towards, mainly through her involvement with the Child Rescue Coalition.
In the Glamour interview, she offers some tangible suggestions for fixing the issue of misrepresentation of children in media. (She specifically says to write a letter to your internet provider and get them to block any websites supporting unsavory material.)
But what really motivates her to make change is knowing “there are hundreds of thousands of missing-children reports in the United States each year; some of those children are [used], but that’s not reported. You see [stories about] only the wealthy, middle-class girls who’ve been [taken]. There are people missing all the time, and because they’re minorities, because they come from impoverished neighborhoods, they don’t make the news. That is so devastating.”
It seems like Blake Lively isn’t only a super-mom, designer, Cordon Bleu-trained chef, and actor, she’s also an outstanding activist, too.
5 She Has An Interview With Gigi Hadid That She Did For Harper’s Bazaar
This is a fact that we thought was really strange. Blake Lively is apparently on close enough terms with Gigi Hadid that they did an interview together for Harper’s Bazaar.
Let’s be clear: it’s not that they were both interviewed by the publication… Blake Lively did the interviewing. She sat down and had a chat with Gigi Hadid and they talked about everything from the media to prom. For the record, Gigi Hadid went to prom four years in a row. Most high schools only have four years to them, so that’s the pinnacle of cool (as you would expect from Gigi, after all). Blake Lively also went to prom, but she says her “prom situation was full-on Toddlers & Tiaras.”
It definitely sounds more like two friends chatting over coffee than two stars having an intense and emotional interview. We believe that that's just part of the charm of Blake Lively; no matter who it is she’s talking to, whether it’s a post on Instagram or in an interview with Vogue, she’s got this natural ease and articulation. She just seems like an incredible person. Plus, anyone who can be friends with both Martha Stewart AND Gigi Hadid must be someone worth knowing and supporting — talk about a strange mix of people.
4 There's One Motto That Blake Lively Likes To Live By
With all this wisdom being spouted from Blake lately, there’s got to be some bad advice coming. Where’s the wild Gossip Girl hiding? Turns out, that’s just a character. Blake Lively is all stylish skirts and cool-mom personality, and we can’t get enough of her good advice. Even the wisest of us have inspirational phrases that we live by. Not to mention experiencing mistakes, defeats, and discouragement that we’ve decided to learn from.
Blake Lively, with her positive attitude and glowing personality, has probably had her fair share of defeat and discouragement. However, we couldn’t find anything about those (unfortunately). What we did find was some strong advice buried in an interview Lively did with Glamour. She says that there’s one phrase that she essentially lives by: “‘this too shall pass.’ It’s a reminder — if something is painful, it will pass. But also, if something is beautiful, knowing that this too shall pass makes you hold on to the moment. Savor it.”
Turns out you don’t need to live wildly in order to gain wisdom; you can live, learn, and grow from every experience and naturally nurture your wisdom.
Blake Lively, coming in hard and fast with an inspirational quote. Letting things go is important, but knowing that the good and the bad will pass…now that’s powerful!
3 But She's Always True To Herself
Blake Lively is one of those unique people who has really grown into herself. She started appearing in the limelight while she was still a teenager, but now she’s 30. She’s an outspoken woman who’s a great role model for any creative artists out there who want to have both a career and a family. Not to mention how she’s never compromised her beliefs.
Even when she had to take down her website, Preserve, to rejig it, she did it with the knowledge that she’s going to improve it and put it back up. When Vogue asked how she’s going to combat the negative responses and criticism she’s likely going to receive for taking down her website, Lively replied “I’ve finally summoned the strength to take on whatever anybody says because I know I’m going to come back with something stronger. I’m proud of it and I can take it because I am a much harder critic on me than any nasty gossip rag. And that’s a good thing and a bad thing, but I just want to make myself and my family proud.”
Not only that, but she’s made everyone proud by showing us that you don’t have to succumb to negative words that are thrown at you. She’s true to herself and standing behind her choices, just like we all should.
2 She Doesn’t Let Haters Bother Her
When you’ve been in the limelight since your junior year of high school, you’ve probably learned a thing or two about dealing with haters. Unfortunately, tabloids are one of the biggest causes of pain for stars.
Blake Lively told Vogue in an interview that “there have been so many things written about me that are untrue... I can’t even believe that my family has to read this stuff. You just have to do what makes you happy, because you’ll never get a unanimous vote. People like to gossip. They bond over it. They don’t bond over complimenting famous people. I’m always the first person to defend Gwyneth Paltrow. Or any woman in a position of power, like Martha Stewart or Oprah, who gets burned. Because they have paved the path for so many other women who are doing something they believe in.” She’s not wrong!
Her fierceness is one that should be admired, as she makes an excellent point: people do like to gossip, even if the gossip isn’t true.
It’s truly remarkable that she’s able to keep her head held high after so many years facing the media. We’ll pledge along with Lively to defend the strong women in our lives. Let's all help Lively to turn those gossip mills into compliment trains!
1 Blake Lively Is Basically All Around Perfect
So, what have we learned from this deep dive into the life and mind of the fascinating Blake Lively? While she doesn’t like to be painted as perfect (and thinks that it’s damaging to simplify women in that way), it’s hard to think of her as anything but. She makes such a positive impact on the world, that it’s easy to see why people want to work with her and support her; she supports those that she loves and will do anything for her family and friends. That kind of genuine, open-heart love doesn’t come easily, and it should be celebrated when it’s seen.
Plus, she’s so talented and committed to her work! Deleting her entire Instagram is something that we wouldn’t ever think of doing-- And we’re not even famous! When you’ve got such a huge social media following, it’s almost unthinkable to throw that away. It really speaks to her dedication to the role, as well as for her work in general. If there’s one thing we’ve learned about Blake Lively, it’s that she’s a beautiful human: inside, and out. Even if you don’t like Gossip Girl, there’s something for everyone in Lively’s filmography; not to mention within her realm of artistic talents. We’ll be over here eagerly awaiting her reopening of Preserve, and watching that Instagram for new Lively photos.
References: harpersbazaar.com, vogue.com, vogue.com, dailymail.co.uk, news.com.au, refinery29.com, prweb.com, radiofree.com, marthastewartweddings.com, architecturaldigest.com, elle.com, hellogiggles.com, feature.variety.com, eonline.com, glamour.com, instagram,
