Lisa Rinna

Lisa Deanna Rinna was born on July 11, 1963, in Newport Beach, California, to Frank Rinna and Lois Irene Rinna, née DeAndrade. She is of Portuguese and Italian descent. When Rinna was seven years old, her older half-sister Laurene died, and that same year her family relocated to Medford, Oregon, following her father's job transfer. She spent the rest of her childhood there and graduated from North Medford High School in 1981.

After high school, Rinna moved to San Francisco to pursue modeling, beginning with commercial work that she credits with earning her a SAG card. At twenty-one, she appeared in the music video for John Parr's single "Naughty Naughty." Her television debut came in 1990, when she appeared in multiple episodes of The Hogan Family as the girlfriend of Jason Bateman's character.

Rinna first took on the role of Billie Reed on NBC's daytime soap opera Days of Our Lives in 1992, a character she would reprise in 2002, 2012, and 2018. The role earned her two consecutive Soap Opera Digest Awards. She departed the show in 1995 and transitioned to primetime television, joining the cast of Aaron Spelling's Fox drama Melrose Place from 1996 to 1998 as Taylor McBride. In 1998, while six months pregnant with her first daughter, she posed for the September issue of Playboy magazine in a pictorial titled "Melrose Mom," photographed by Deborah Anderson. She posed for Playboy a second time in May 2009 and again appeared on its cover.

Through the late 1990s, Rinna appeared in several television films, including the Lifetime production Sex, Lies & Obsession, in which she starred opposite her husband, actor Harry Hamlin. In 2000, she starred in another Lifetime film, Another Woman's Husband, which drew some of the network's highest ratings since 1999. In 2001, she appeared in the comedy film Good Advice alongside Charlie Sheen and Denise Richards, playing the role of Veronica Simpson.

From 2002 to 2006, Rinna hosted Soap Talk, the flagship daily lifestyle program on cable network SoapNet, alongside co-host Ty Treadway. The pair received four consecutive Daytime Emmy Award nominations for Outstanding Talk Show Host. During the same period, she hosted three seasons of Lifetime's home makeover series Merge. In 2004, she guest-starred on the ABC sitcom 8 Simple Rules and took on the recurring role of Lynn Echolls on the CW drama Veronica Mars. In 2006, Rinna competed in the second season of Dancing with the Stars, partnered with professional dancer Louis van Amstel, and was eliminated in the seventh round by audience vote despite receiving higher scores from the judges than fellow celebrity contestant Jerry Rice.

Rinna made her Broadway debut in the summer of 2007, portraying Roxie Hart in the Broadway production of Chicago. Her husband Harry Hamlin appeared alongside her in the production, playing the role of Billy Flynn. That same year, she guest-starred on HBO's Entourage as Donna Devaney in the episode "Malibooty," and hosted Oxygen's reality competition series Tease, aimed at hairstylists. From 2007 to 2009, she served as host of TV Guide Network's awards season red carpet coverage. In 2008, she appeared in Disney Channel's Hannah Montana as Francesca, a cousin of the recurring character Mr. Dontzig. That year, Rinna and Hamlin signed a deal to develop a family-based reality series; the resulting show, Harry Loves Lisa, premiered on TV Land on October 6, 2010, and ran for six episodes.

In 2011, Rinna appeared on Nickelodeon's Big Time Rush as Brooke Diamond and competed in season four of NBC's The Celebrity Apprentice, where she was eliminated after serving as project manager on the second task, which involved writing and performing a children's book. She returned to the program in its sixth season as an All-Stars contestant. Rinna and Hamlin also jointly owned the Belle Gray clothing boutique in Sherman Oaks, California, which they closed in 2012 as their acting commitments increased. In April 2012, she launched the Lisa Rinna Collection on QVC.

In 2014, Rinna joined the main cast of Bravo's The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills for its fifth season, remaining with the series until 2022. That same year she appeared as a contestant on ABC's game show Sing Your Face Off. Her other television guest appearances include roles on Community, The Middle, and American Horror Stories. She also appeared as a guest judge on the fourth episode of the second season of RuPaul's Drag Race in 2010.

Beyond television and stage, Rinna has authored three books: Starlit, The Big, Fun, Sexy Sex Book, and Rinnavation. Her business ventures include the Lisa Rinna Collection for QVC, the cosmetics line Rinna Beauty, and the beverage company Rinna Wines.