Tara Reid biography: Sharknado movies, net worth, liposculpting, and relationship

Tara Reid was born on 8 November 1975 in Wyckoff, New Jersey, USA, and she is an American actress and reality star. Reid is arguably most known for her role as Vicky in the film series “American Pie,” whose first instalment was released in 1999. She featured in three instalments of the series. Tara Reid is also known for her role in the cult classic “The Big Lebowski”.

An acting career, just like every other aspect of man’s existence, is a journey laden with its ups and downs. More than that, it is a journey that hardly has a definite pattern or trajectory. The case is not different for Tara Reid, who has had quite the tumultuous ride in her career. Having started acting at the young age of 6, Tara, who is now 45, has a career that spans 39 years. The actress has enjoyed her fair share of fame, commercial success, and misfires, amongst other things.

Reid started well, and her career held a lot of promise and potential, but a few poor career and personal decisions quickly changed her trajectory. A once widely known fan’s favourite soon became a D-list actress at best, struggling to remain relevant in an ever-moving industry.

In 2013, “Sharknado”, a film made for television, was released and enjoyed a wide following for its blatant ridiculousness and dark comedy. Reid was among the main Sharknado cast, and reprised her role in the five sequels that followed, spread across 5 years. It is not out of place to say the movie played a role in reviving a career that had, up till its release, become a bit quiet.

In this article, we will take a closer look at the life of Tara Reid and the interesting journey of her acting career over the last four decades. Her high and low points, and where things currently stand for the actress. First, here are ten facts about Tara Reid.

10 facts about Tara Reid

1. Tara will be 46 on her birthday in 2021, and she was born in November 1975. Her birthday itself is not known.
2. She started acting at age 6, and made her first appearance on the game show “Child’s Play” in 1981.
3. Tara Reid appeared in more than 100 commercials for several prestigious establishments like McDonald’s, Crayola, and Jell-O among others.
4. She got her first major movie role in 1998 in the cult classic “The Big Lebowski,” where she starred as Bunny.
5. She was a contestant in the 2011 edition of Celebrity Big Brother 8 where she got evicted after only a month in the house.
6. In 2006, she had a liposculpture that went wrong and ended in deformity. She later had other procedures to correct the errors.
7. Reid has twice had wedding engagements called off in the past. The first was in June 2001 when she and Carlton Daly split, and the other time was in April 2010 when she parted ways with fiancé Michael Axtmann.
8. She hosted her travel and vacation show “Taradise on E!” but it lasted just a month before it was cancelled.
9. Tara Reid received the Young Hollywood Award for her role in the film “American Pie”.
10. In 2021, Reid is estimated to have a net worth of $2 million.

Related: Facts about Ari Fletcher; relationships, businesses, and net worth

Early life and education

Tara Reid was born in Wyckoff, New Jersey, into the family of Donna Bennet and Thomas Reid, who are now both deceased. Together, her parents ran a daycare centre. Her father, Thomas, also had a day job on Wall Street. Reid grew up with three siblings; a set of younger twins and another brother, Tom. She walked the path of acting from her childhood, and attended the Professional Children’s School in Manhattan. She had schoolmates in other known actors like Sarah Michelle Gellar, Donald Faison and Macaulay Culkin amongst others.

Tara Reid Career

Reid’s acting career is almost as old as she is. She started acting at the young age of 6 in the game show “Child’s Play”. She also appeared in a myriad of commercials for some well-known brands. As a teenager, she appeared in the Teen Sitcom “Saved By The Bell: The New Class“.

She moved to Hollywood at the age of 18 in order to better her chances of getting major film roles. It wasn’t long before she got her big break by landing a role in the 1998 film “The Big Lebowski,” where she played Bunny Lebowski, the trophy wife of wealthy Jeffrey Lebowski. Without a doubt, her breakthrough role positioned her for more opportunities, so that she got a bigger role in the film “Urban Legend,” where she played the role of a sexy radio host. The movie turned out to be more commercially successful than her first. Its success propelled two sequels, which for unclear reasons, didn’t see Tara reprise her role.

The roles were coming in quick succession for her, and she soon appeared in yet another cinema hit, “Cruel Intentions”. It was, however, the 1999 film “American Pie,” where Tara played the role of Vicky, that gave her a major mainstream break. The film was an instant hit both critically and commercially, and ended up having three sequels, two of which Reid appeared in.

Tara Reid hot scenes and stills have become one of the most famous things about the early “American Pie” films.

Unfortunately, after her appearance in “American Pie”, Tara’s career began a downward slope due poor personal and career decisions. She appeared in the films “Van Wilder” and “Jose and The Pussycats”; two films which received negative reviews and did poorly commercially. These films put a small dent in her hitherto blossoming career.

Reid then went on to do a stint on the NBC series “Scrubs”, appearing in 11 episodes in the third season. She got nominated for Worst Supporting Actress and Worst Screen Couple at the 2004 Golden Raspberry Awards for her role alongside Ashton Kutcher in the film, “My Boss’s Daughter”.

In 2005, Reid misfired yet again by staring in the film “Alone In The Dark”. It was a huge critical failure, and she went on to get a Razzie Awards nomination for Worst Actress. She landed another role on television as the host of the travel and vacation show, “Taradise on E!”, but it was cancelled within a month of its premiere. She appeared in other mini-projects between then and 2011, amongst them, were some direct to video films, and a number of TV commercials.

In the 2011 reality show “Celebrity Big Brother 8”, Reid participated and was the second contestant to enter the house. She got evicted within two weeks after garnering the least votes. Her career, however, received a boost in 2013 when she appeared as a main character in the Syfy dark comedy “Sharknado”. The film became a fan’s favourite and enjoyed commercial success, leading to five sequels, all of which she appeared in. The last instalment was released in 2018.

The actress has appeared on a number of magazine covers in her time. Among them are CosmoGirl, Rollingstone, and Playboy, to mention a few. She also launched her swimwear line and perfume, Shark by Tara in 2014, as inspired by the film “Sharknado”.

Tara Reid Sharknado movies

What made for television movie starring Tara Reid was a surprise hit in 2013? “Sharknado” was a 2013 made for television movie starring Tara Reid, which was a surprise hit. It came after the actress had endured a rough couple of years in her career and personal life. The film, which has now become a cult classic, is a dark comedy centred around a natural disaster involving Sharks and a Tornado. It is the first part of a six-series film franchise.

Tara Reid was part of the Sharknado cast for all the movies from 2013 to 2018.

It follows the story of a shark fin smuggler, Carlos Santiago, whose ship gets caught in a cyclone, interrupting his meeting with a potential buyer. A tornado throws swarms of sharks onto the boat, killing all aboard. The cyclone soon hits Los Angeles, flooding the city with shark-infested seawater. The quest for survival in the bizarre disaster is the centre of the story. The film is well known for its ridiculous and over the top theme, which provides the comical angle for which it is well-loved. Rotten Tomatoes said of the film, “it’s so bad it’s so good.”

Tara wasn’t immediately sold on the project. According to her, “it was the worst movie I ever read.” She also said of the film in an interview, “it is silly, and there’s only a certain amount of barriers you could go into. You can’t take it so seriously when it’s absolutely the sharks flying in the sky. It’s so out there that it’s actually really funny.”

Though the film’s premiere was a tad underwhelming, it trended on Twitter right away, and sparked discussions among filmmakers and actors alike. Due to the popularity it enjoyed on Twitter, the film was shown again a week later, and it recorded a 38% increase in viewership. There were more screenings of the film, and each time recorded an increase in viewership. The film’s theme of surviving a disaster soon got infused into modern culture, and the franchise ultimately attained the status of a cult classic.

How many Sharknado movies are there? There are six “Sharknado” movies in total, namely:

1. Sharknado (2013)
2. Sharknado 2: The Second One (2014)
3. Sharknado 3: Oh Hell No! (2015)
4. Sharknado: The 4th Awakens (2016)
5. Sharknado 5: Global Swarming (2017)
6. The Last Sharknado: It’s About Time (2018)

In addition to the film’s ridiculous plot, its popularity also had to do with Tara Reid hot scenes. She was no stranger to these kinds of shots as her hot photos have been published in magazines like Playboy in the past.

Personal life and relationships

Just like her turbulent acting career, Reid’s personal life has been a subject of public discussion for a couple of reasons. She particularly seems to have a dramatic love life.

Tara Reid dated American TV and radio personality Carson Daly in 2000. The pair got engaged in October of the same year after Daly proposed. They had begun living together in New York at the time. Eventually, things didn’t go past that stage as the intending couple broke things off in June of 2001.

Also read: Lorde’s top 10 greatest hits | Lorde songs ranked

Later, Reid began dating entrepreneur Michael Axtmann from 2009, and he proposed to her in a romantic setting at a Los Angeles restaurant in January 2010. According to several sources at the time, a private wedding ceremony was already planned for later in the year. In April, however, it was reported that the couple had ended their relationship. A spokesperson of Reid said in an interview, “Tara Reid has confirmed that she will not be moving forward with her May 22 nuptials.”

A few months after the Axtmann relationship ended, she started dating Danish businessman Michael Lillelund. It is unclear how the relationship went or ended but didn’t last long because in, August of 2011, the actress made it known that she was married to Zachary Kehayov, a Bulgarian financier. She later remarked that they weren’t actually legally married.

Tara Reid Liposculping

In a 2006 interview with US Weekly, Tara opened up about having had a plastic surgery that went wrong. The actress had a liposculping to even out her “uneven” br__sts and to get “sixpack” which she needed for a film role. The operation resulted in deformity, which was later amended by a number of other surgeries.

Steven Svehlak, the new plastic surgeon that became famous for correcting Reid’s botched surgery, reported that he performed a procedure called a “doughnut mastopexy” to correct her original augmentation. Then, he proceeded to carry out liposculpting on her to even out her abdomen.

Read more: Who is Sarah Beattie, did she write for SNL? See book Money Shot comic and more

Tara Reid net worth

Tara Reid has, over the years, tried her hands on different enterprises. Asides her acting and commercials, she has launched perfume and swimwear brands that are fairly successful. In 2007, she was also reported to have shares in three restaurants, Bella, Geisha House, and The Shore. She also opened Ketchup, a fast-food restaurant based in Los Angeles.

Based on all of these and other endeavors, she is estimated to have a net worth of around $2 million.

Conclusion

There is no gainsaying the fact that Tara Reid has not had a smooth life, both career wise and personally. She has navigated through a blossoming career, a downslide, a bad cosmetic surgery, a couple of unsuccessful attempts at relationships, and a mild alcohol problem for which she checked into a detox facility. Overall, she has emerged from it all and is still standing.

At 45, she certainly still has a long road ahead of her. A couple of mouthwatering upcoming projects have been named on her schedule, and it is reason to be excited for and with her. A few good films, good publicity, and she’s set for the next phase of her career.

You may also like to read: Who is antiques auctioneer Christina Trevillian on BBC Bargain Hunt? See age and weight loss.