Amid relentless fan interest over her rumored rift with her on-screen love interest, Justin Baldoni and getting accused of ‘trivializing’ domestic violence while on her latest press tour, the actress has suffered from PR nightmare over the past month.
This includes substantial backlash over her ‘mean girl’ behavior and comments in multiple resurfaced interviews over the years, including the use of the transgender slur ‘tranny’ in several unearthed videos.
As she continues to come under fire for her actions, a number of social media users have pointed out that many of her out of touch comments could be traced back to her privileged background as the daughter of a talent agent and famous actor.
By age 10, the Gossip Girl star made her professional debut in a small role in her father Ernie Lively’s 1998 film Sandman.
While it is not common knowledge that she is a ‘nepo baby,’ her family is filled with others entertainers, including her four older siblings.
Blake Lively’s name has been on everyone’s lips following the release of her new film, It Ends With Us, based the best-selling Colleen Hoover novel of the same name; seen with her parents in 2016
The Los Angeles native is considered a ‘nepo baby.’ Her parents, Ernie and Elaine Lively, were crucial in kickstarting her successful acting career and used their industry connections to help get her foot in the door.
Ernie, who passed away in 2021, even starred alongside his star in her breakout role in The Sisterhood of Travelling Pants franchise.
Blake played his daughter, Bridget Vreeland, in both films.
Over his 50-year career in the industry, Ernie starred in films like Passenger 57, The Dukes of Hazzard and Turner & Hooch.
Additionally, he dabbled in directing and producing.
Blake’s mother, who also did a bit of acting, worked as a talent manager.
The Los Angeles native’s parents, Ernie and Elaine Lively, were crucial in kickstarting her successful acting career; seen in 2005
Ernie, who passed away in 2021, even starred alongside his star in her breakout role in The Sisterhood of Travelling Pants franchise (pictured in 2008)
Over his 50-year career in the industry, Ernie starred in films like Passenger 57, The Dukes of Hazzard and Turner & Hooch (pictured in 2009)
Did Blake always want to be an actress?
Back in 2006, Blake claimed that she didn’t have much of a choice when it came to entering showbusiness.
‘The day I was born, when I came home from the hospital, I literally didn’t go to my house. I went to my sister’s set,’ she told Radio Free Entertainment.
Blake continued: ‘I’ve grown up on sets, my mum is a manager and always has kids come in for coaching, my family’s always going over lines for an audition, I’m always stealing craft service.’
‘So 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 to do,’ the mother-of-four admitted.
While appearing on The View, Blake recalls a rumor going around her high school that her parents ‘paid off the show choir director’ to put her in the singing group.
‘At one point, parents lied and said that my parents had paid off the show choir director to put me in the choir because I can’t sing or dance to save life,’ she recalled.
Despite saying she lacked the talent to be in choir, Blake credited her passion for swaying the director to let her in the group.
‘I lost a lot of friends because of it,’ she said of the rumor. ‘That was hard to deal with.’
Who are Blake’s siblings?
Blake is the youngest in her family. In addition to her brother Jason Lively, who her parents welcomed in 1981, her mother shares three children with her ex-husband Ronnie Lively.
After marrying Blake’s mom, Elaine, her father, Ernie, adopted his wife’s three eldest children: Lori Lively, Jason Lively and Jason Lively.
While Blake is the most famous of her siblings, her sister Lori is best known for her role in the 1991 film Dead Space.
Her other sister, Robyn, made a name for herself as Louise Miller in 1989’s Teen Witch and for appearing in The Karate Kid Part III and its spinoff, Cobra Kai.
Blake’s brother, Jason, was in the pilot episode of Dukes of Hazzard and appeared in National Lampoon’s European Vacation.
Meanwhile, Eric made an appearance in The L Word, So Weird and Speak.
How did she land her first breakout role?
Ultimately, Blake credits her brother, Eric, for convincing her to pursue acting professionally.
‘[Eric] decided that I needed to be more cultured and took me around Europe for two months, while I was taking world history,’ she recalled to Radio Free Entertainment.
After traveling all over London, Florence, Venice, Rome, Cologne, Brussels and Paris together, she recalls him sitting her down and asking: ‘What are you going to do with your life?’
‘I’m 15 at the time,’ she said, before noting that her brother predicted she would become an actress and telling his own agents to start sending her on auditions.
Blake continued: ‘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 [of the Traveling Pants].’
The mother-of-four was was 16 when she played Bridget in the first Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants film.
By 17, Lively was regularly attending auditions.
Less than three years later, she landed her role as Serena van der Woodsen on Gossip Girl, which made her a household name.
