From storage sheds to Hollywood stardom: An inspiring journey

She’s got that kind of energy that just pulls you in, and a smile that practically carried her straight to the top of Hollywood. Honestly, you’d never guess she grew up in total chaos. But the truth is, her childhood in L.A. was anything but glamorous.

She was raised by her mom, Maureen — a single parent who danced in strip clubs to get by — and things got so tough they even ended up living in a storage unit because they couldn’t afford rent.

Named ”Hottest Woman Alive” in 2011
We’ve all faced challenges in life, but the Hollywood star we’re taking a closer look at today really had the odds stacked against her.

Yet today, her trophy case is overflowing, and she’s even been named the “Sexiest Woman Alive.”

She was born in California in 1980, the result of a short fling between her mom and former Aerosmith guitarist Rick Dufay. Most of the time, she was raised by her mom and her mom’s on-and-off boyfriend, David Gonzalez.

Even as a seven-year-old, she knew her life was different. Growing up in L.A. with a single mom who worked as an exotic dancer, money was always tight. At one point, things got so bad they couldn’t afford their apartment, and ended up living in a storage shed just to have a roof over their heads.

“I spent a lot of my youth wishing my mom was something she wasn’t, wishing she was like the other moms,” she once reflected. “I only really appreciated how special she was when I got older. In fact, maybe a little too late.”

Bauer-Griffin/GC Images
Her childhood was chaotic and unpredictable, packed with instability and hardship. She often went along with her mom to Crazy Girls, a local topless bar that had been open since 1983. The club was famous for mixing rock ‘n’ roll shows with exotic pole dances, Motley Crüe even shot their infamous “Girls, Girls, Girls” video there.

“When she made a lot of money that night, we’d go grocery shopping at 2 a.m.,” the actress told People when her memoir was released.

“My childhood was colorful and chaotic… unstable and inconsistent, unpredictable and hard a lot of the time. But the silver lining is that it made me a very adaptable person,” she says.

To make ends meet, her mother once tried to smuggle drugs across the Mexico –U.S. border, but she was caught and spent time in jail. While her mother was incarcerated, the actress was sent to live with various friends and acquaintances. In one of those homes, she even experienced physical abuse.

By the time she was a teenager, she was fending for herself and started performing in peep shows at an Albuquerque adult-video store.

“I started with the scariest part,” she recalls. “The part I carried the most shame about… the part I hid my whole life. And I felt like that was where I had to be the bravest.”

Wanted to be a nurse
She later escaped a toxic relationship with her first boyfriend, a relationship that involved coercion and an abortion, before trying to reconnect with her estranged father, the former rock musician.

She initially trained to be a scrub nurse but eventually moved to Los Angeles to pursue modeling and acting.

Her big breakthrough — the role most people probably know her from — was the hit series Friday Night Lights. Inspired by the football movie of the same name, the show follows a high school football team in the fictional town of Dillon, in rural West Texas. She played Lyla Garrity, a high school student and cheerleader, earning critical praise for her performance.

”I was living out of a suitcase in my girlfriends apartment when I got the call that I’d be moving to Austin. I called the surgery center where I worked as a scrub nurse and told them I’d be leaving for some football show in Texas but I’ll see you guys again as soon as I’m back,” the actress once shared on Instagram.

”Little did I know I hit the proverbial jackpot and the show would go on for 5 years”.

The show never became a massive mainstream hit, but critics and fans loved it. Many praised it for its realistic portrayal of Middle America and the way it explored the lives of its central characters in depth.

Our star was a key part of what made the show so popular and took her role seriously, training with the Pflugerville High School cheerleading squad to prepare for her character.

And now, you’ve probably guessed who we’re talking about… Minka Kelly!

Today, the 45-year-old actress is a well-established presence in Hollywood, with roles in films like The Roommate and The Butler. The Roommate, though it received generally negative reviews, still earned over $15.6 million in its opening weekend and more than $40 million worldwide.

Aimee Teegarden, Minka Kelly and Scott Porter from Friday Night Lights / Getty Images
In 2013, she took on the role of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis in The Butler, directed by Lee Daniels and starring alongside James Marsden, Oprah Winfrey, and Forest Whitaker. The film was a major success, grossing over $177 million worldwide.

While she may not be in the absolute top-tier A-list like Scarlett Johansson or Jennifer Lawrence, she’s highly respected for her talent, versatility, and lasting presence in both TV and film.

Kelly’s most recent major project is Ransom Canyon, an American romantic western series on Netflix, based on the book series by Jodi Thomas.

But Minka Kelly is, of course, more than just an actress. Since her mother’s passing in 2008, she has focused a lot on helping other women through various projects. She’s a strong advocate for regular breast cancer screenings.

The Friday Night Lights star also works with ABLE, a company dedicated to creating sustainable jobs for vulnerable women in Africa. ABLE began by employing and training women in Ethiopia who were former sex workers.

Her died of colon cancer
Her philanthropic work is deeply connected to the relationship she had with her mother, Maureen. Their bond remained complicated even as Kelly was breaking into Hollywood. Estranged for years over financial disputes, they only reconnected when her mother was diagnosed with terminal colon cancer. Confronted with the reality of her mother’s final years, Kelly chose forgiveness over resentment.

“I found that the only way to fill that hole in my heart was to be of service. And I wanted to be of service with women,” she says about her charitable work.

At the end, she held her mother as she passed away in hospice — a moment both heartbreaking and transformative. Minka carries regrets, like missing her mom’s last Thanksgiving, but says writing her memoir, Tell Me Everything, was cathartic.

“It felt very liberating to sort of own my history as opposed to feel like I need to hide it anymore,” she says.

Abusive boyfriend
The book was widely praised upon its release and quickly made bestseller lists. It offered a unique look into the childhood that shaped Minka… but, as she herself says, it’s also a tribute to her mother and all working-class single mothers “who were dealt a bad hand.” Publishers Weekly called it “an immensely moving story of one woman’s unconquerable spirit.”

In her book, she also opens up about her first serious relationship. Her boyfriend at the time was cruel — repeatedly calling her a “slut” because of how she dressed and pressuring her to have sex with a female friend. When she refused, he went ahead and had sex with the friend right in front of her.

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The next day, Kelly discovered she was pregnant.

When her mother returned, they went to Planned Parenthood, where Kelly agonized over whether to terminate the pregnancy. Her mother suggested raising the baby together, but Kelly wrote, “With what money? What home? What insurance? I couldn’t imagine bringing a baby into what my mother brought me into. Absolutely not,” Kelly wrote. She ultimately made the decision to have an abortion.

Since then, Kelly has had several high-profile relationships over the years.

During her time at Friday Night Lights, Minka Kelly dated her co-star Taylor Kitsch.

But their “toxic” romance not only impacted her personally, but also affected how she interacted with other cast members on the hit NBC series, which ran from 2006 to 2011.

Minka Kelly relationships
”On the days we had to work together and were broken up, he didn’t want to be in the hair and makeup trailer at the same time I was. We couldn’t ride in the van together from base camp to set for the same reason,” Kelly wrote in her memoir.

Then Kelly dated actor Chris Evans and was in a long-term relationship with former New York Yankees shortstop Derek Jeter from 2008 to 2011. She also dated comedian Trevor Noah and had a brief romance with Jesse Williams, whom she met while working on Detroit: Become Human.

Since 2022, she has been in a relationship with Dan Reynolds, the singer and frontman of Imagine Dragons.

Outside of her relationships, Kelly has a passion for cooking and baking —she even graduated from the New School of Cooking in Culver City, California, in 2015 and has expressed interest in hosting a traveling cooking show.

So what does the future hold for this talented, beautiful, brave, and utterly inspiring actress? We can’t wait to see what her next project will be!