Tara Reid was a Hollywood "It Girl" in the late '90's, but you probably haven't heard
much about her lately.
What made this blonde bombshell go from appearing in hit movies to only being hired for spoofs?
Tara Reid got her acting start on the small screen with a one-off appearance on Saved
by the Bell: The New Class, which she followed up with a recurring role on the long-running
soap, Days of Our Lives.
Her first part in a major movie came when she played Bunny Lebowski in 1998's The Big
Lebowski.
She kept auditioning for the big screen, and snagged some other minor appearances in films
like Cruel Intentions and Urban Legend, before having her breakout moment playing Vicky in
1999's American Pie.
The flick was a smash hit, bringing in over $102 million at the US box office and over
$235 million worldwide.
Then-23-year-old Reid became a household name overnight.
Two successful sequels followed, 2001's American Pie 2 and 2003's Tara Reid-less American Wedding,
as well as a disappointing fourth installment, 2012's American Reunion.
This bomb only earned $57 million at the United States box office, and Reid only earned a
reported $250,000 for the role.
But as Reid hung on to Vicky throughout the entire franchise, that made breaking away
from her image as the hot blonde next door all the more difficult.
"You got in."
"Yes!
I love you!"
"Okay."
Tara Reid's first film after American Pie was a major flop called Body Shots.
Released in 1999, the movie starts with a group of young adults going bar hopping, but
quickly turns dark when the character played by Jerry O'Connell is accused of assaulting
the character played by Reid.
The film lacked the delicacy required to handle the sensitive topic properly, which is probably
why it ended up with a mere eleven percent approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes.
As critic Robert Ebert pointed out, the movie,
"suffers from a fatal misapprehension.
It thinks it is about date r---, when actually it is about alcoholism.
That's why the ending is inconclusive and unsatisfactory; not only does it fail to find
answers, but they would be to the wrong questions."
Reid followed Body Shots with a small role in 2000's Doctor T and the Women, then starred
in 2001's Josie and the Pussycats with Rosario Dawson and Rachel Leigh Cook.
Somewhere along the way, she went from playing the girl next door to being typecast as the
hot party girl.
In many of her films that followed, from 2002's Van Wilder: Party Liaison to 2003's My Boss's
Daughter, Reid appeared to be playing the same character over and over again.
She was unable to shake the persona and, as it turns out, art may have been imitating
life.
"So the party starts at seven, you could be at my dad's house by six."
Reid's struggle to be taken seriously as an actress was made harder by the fact that the
roles she landed garnered her a number of Worst Actress nominations.
While some actors can simply laugh off a bad acting award and move on with their careers,
others are haunted by it.
Unfortunately, that was the case for Reid.
After her American Pie success began to dwindle, Reid was nominated for several Razzie Awards.
The Razzies, or Golden Raspberry Awards, are parody awards handed out to actors and films
for their failures and shortcomings.
Reid's first two nominations were for Worst Supporting Actress and Worst Screen Couple
for her role in 2003's My Boss's Daughter.
She was later nominated for Worst Actress again, this time for 2005's Alone in the Dark.
The video game horror flick received a mere one percent approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes.
The flick also won her a Stinker Award for Worst Actress, which is actually the only
award she has ever won, aside from one Young Hollywood Award for Best Ensemble Cast for
American Pie.
While her acting career was failing to take off, Tara Reid did get a lot of recognition
for a whole other reason in the mid-2000s: frequent and enthusiastic partying.
In 2005, she was hired as the new host of E!'s Wild On travel show, taking her party
antics on the road, from England to Croatia.
After filming was done, the name of the show actually had to be changed from Wild On to
Taradise, likely due to the fact that her partying turned the series into something
too far estranged from the cultural travel program it was meant to be.
The show didn't pan out as the network had expected, and it was canceled after just one
season.
As E! Networks President Ted Harbert explained to Broadcasting and Cable,
"Tara was involved in every minute, and it was an exhausting production."
Reid didn't take the cancellation lightly, telling US Weekly that it was,
"probably the stupidest thing I ever did...I didn't know it was going to ruin my career."
Even so, Reid didn't stop partying.
In 2007, TMZ posted photos of a heavily intoxicated Reid in Las Vegas, which it captioned, quote,
"TRAIN WRECK on the party train!"
In 2015, Reid met DJ Crichy Crich on a flight and, according to TMZ, the pair had quite
a bit to drink.
So much so that, upon landing, they headed to a tattoo shop where the DJ got Reid's name
tattooed on him.
Yikes.
"I had it covered actually.
I covered it with my first, I covered it with my first, like, original record label."
In what was thought to be a failed publicity stunt, Tara Reid said "I do" to Zack Kehayov
just hours after getting engaged.
The pair was vacationing in Greece in 2011 when Reid tweeted the happy news.
At 11:58 am on August 13, she announced, "I just got engaged!"
Just hours later, at 1:37 am on August 14, she wrote, "Just got married in Greece.
I love being a wife!"
According to People, Reid had previously been engaged to entrepreneur Michael Axtmann in
2010, with Reid pulling the plug.
Turns out, her marriage to Kehayov wasn't meant to be either, because it never actually
happened.
When TMZ caught her acting heavily intoxicated at LAX in October 2011, Reid admitted that
she and Kehayov were never really married.
Jump to 2016 and Reid seemed to fake yet another relationship in an attempt to give her career
a boost.
Reid appeared on Marriage Boot Camp: Reality Stars with boyfriend Dean May.
However, she accidentally revealed they weren't really a couple.
Reid admitted,
"Part of the reason we did the show is because [May] owes money and taxes and he could use
the money and he wouldn't mind the fame...so I wanted to do the show for him."
Oops.
In 2004, Tara Reid had a wardrobe malfunction that's seared into the cultural memory, while
attending Diddy's 35th birthday party in New York City.
On the red carpet, Reid's dress slid off her shoulder.
The event sparked surgery rumors, and Reid later admitted that she did indeed have breast
augmentation surgery, liposuction, and body contouring, a decision she would come to regret.
While her breast implants left her with unsightly scars, the body contouring left her looking,
and feeling, far worse.
She told People,
"There's not a day that goes by that my stomach doesn't bother me."
In 2008, Tara Reid tried to shed her party girl image and get healthy by checking into
Promises.
The Malibu, California rehab center is the same facility where numerous other celebrities,
from Lindsay Lohan to Britney Spears, have gone to seek treatment.
Rumors that the actress was given a free stay as a paid promotional deal were proven false
by Fox.
After emerging from her sixty-day detox program, Reid appeared to be a new woman.
Speaking with In Touch, she revealed,
"I went there by myself.
I put myself there.
It was the greatest decision I ever made.
Rehab saved my life."
Sadly, her sobriety didn't last.
In 2013, TMZ filmed a clearly intoxicated Reid leaving a club.
In 2014, The Daily Mail shared photos of her falling outside a party in Los Angeles.
In 2016, she was spotted drinking at an airport bar while her flight allegedly took off without
her.
In 2006, Tara Reid was snubbed by Paris Hilton and a then-unknown Kim Kardashian.
The incident took place when Reid was denied access to Hyde Lounge as Hilton and Kardashian
walked right past her and went inside.
In 2013, Reid brought the negative headlines on herself when she talked smack about Lindsay
Lohan.
She told TMZ,
"We don't really like each other that much.
If I get drunk, I'm a happy drunk.
When she gets drunk, she's just mean."
She later apologized, tweeting,
"I truly do wish you the best of luck.
There is no war here."
Even so, nothing was as cringe-worthy as her 2016 exchange with Jenny McCarthy.
Reid appeared on McCarthy's radio show to promote the latest Sharknado, but McCarthy
kept trying to tackle off-limit topics, like Reid's botched plastic surgery.
Reid melted down as McCarthy continued to jab while Tara was trying to leave, saying,
"I hope your t--s get even nicer, because they're amazing.
The same guy who did mine, right?...I'll always use your advice.
You're the best.
Bye."
In an unexpected twist of events, Tara Reid found success and a whole new acting niche
when she starred in 2013's Sharknado.
When Reid first signed on, she was paid just $50,000 for the lead role and the script was
reportedly the worst she had ever read.
She needed the cash, though, and was sure no one would see it.
Lo and behold, the made-for-TV, ultra-B-movie took everyone by surprise when it sparked
a social media feeding frenzy.
That translated into an average 1.369 million viewers for Syfy and a seventy-eight percent
rating on Rotten Tomatoes.
Sharknado's surprise success led to five sequels, with Sharknado 2 actually setting a ratings
record for any Syfy original movie with 3.9 million viewers.
While doing press for Sharknado 5, Reid admitted,
"It's gotten me so much more exposure.
It's like I'm getting a whole new career."
During the press tour for the sixth and final installment, The Last Sharknado: It's About
Time, in 2018, she admitted to The Hollywood Reporter that,
"It still blows my mind away.
I think that's why the fans like it so much, because they see that it's outrageous.
They see that it takes you out of your everyday life."
As the Sharknado franchise came to a close, Reid exited the franchise on a sour note.
In December 2018, she filed a $100 million lawsuit against Sharknado producers SYFY Media
Productions and Asylum Entertainment.
Reid claimed that they had violated her contract and used her likeness to sell Sharknado beer
and slot machines without her permission.
In April 2019, however, she abruptly dropped the case and has since been focusing on her
acting.
Deciding to ride the B-movie train for all its worth, Reid had 16 confirmed roles in
pre- and post-production as of March 2020.
Among them were horror-thriller Cranial Sacral, family film Baby Bulldog, and comedy-horror
El Chapo and the Curse of the Pirate Zombies.
But while she may be embracing the cheesiness, it's not what she dreams of doing forever.
Speaking with Time in 2014, Reid admitted she'd love a serious role, saying,
"There's a whole side of me that no one gets.
Nobody wants to know that side of me.
Even if they do know about it, no one wants to write about it.
So I'm lucky that I'm doing Sharknado right now.
Do I know I have the capacity of doing more?
Of course.
But will I get the chance?
It's not up to me.
It's someone that's gonna believe in me and say yes."
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