Tara Reid

Tara Reid

Though Tara Reid (born November 8, 1975, Wyckoff, New Jersey), became initially famous for her role as the virgin vixen with the smoky voice in the original American Pie movie (1999), and maybe even for her role as Bunny Lebowski in the 1998 cult hit, The Big Lebowski, since then her celebrity has devolved into, not only being known as an around the world party-girl due to her short lived show Taradise on E! Network, but also, unfortunately, as a drunk with a penchant for botched plastic surgery, and whose many mishaps have been recorded through numerous photos and hours of video.

From exposing her newly acquired boob job on the red carpet at P-Diddy’s 35th birthday party, to getting rejected at Hyde, a Hollywood hotspot, in full view of TMZ paparazzi videographers, Reid has become more of a joke to the entertainment industry than an asset. Though recently, with an all access interview given to Us Weekly magazine, given in late 2006, wherein Reid exposed her feelings regarding her plastic surgery, and her attempts to correct the previous procedures, and also with an image overhaul, which includes staying home more at night, her reputation and value to Hollywood might not all be lost.

Early Life

Tara Reid is of Irish, English, French, and Italian ancestry, and was born in Wyckoff, New Jersey to Donna and Tom Reid, both of whom are teachers.

Reid began her career at the age of six in 1982 on the short-lived game show, Child's Play. As a child, she had roles in a number of commercials for McDonald's, Crayola, and Jell-O. She grew up in New York City, and attended the Professional Children's School alongside such celebrities as Christina Ricci, Ben Taylor, Jerry O'Connell, Sarah Michelle Gellar, and Macaulay Culkin. Her breakthrough finally came for her in American Pie in 1999 at the age of 22.

Reid spent the late 1990s appearing more often on the cover of tabloid magazines than on screen. Her boisterous social life soon gave her a reputation as a “party girl,” which she still seems unable to live down; and the negative notoriety has affected her career as a serious actress.

She has starred in many notable movies, such as American Pie (1999), American Pie 2 (2001), National Lampoon's Van Wilder (2002), and Dr. T & the Women (2000), though it seems her more recent movies have been less respectable.

She has appeared as J.D.'s (Zach Braff) girlfriend in the NBC comedy Scrubs, and had a short-lived show that capitalized on her international party girl reputation, Taradise, on the E! network, which premiered in September 2005; however, it was cancelled the following month. Previously during Summer 2005, she was busy shooting Incubus in Romania at an assortment of clubs with Bucharest's local socialites

In January 2007, Reid filmed a commercial for Dodo, an Internet company in Australia that offers budget rates for subscribers.

Personal life

Tara Reid has had many personal relationships with a bevy of famous men. Carson Daly made a cameo appearance in Josie and the Pussycats, in which Reid played the Pussycat, Melody. The two began a romantic relationship shortly thereafter. In June 2001, Reid and Daly broke off their engagement, due to, what some stated as "different priorities": Daly was apparently more of a home-body. In the late 1990s, she dated actor Steve Burton and still is close to him and his family. She also has a penchant for sports stars: she's previously dated Russian hockey star, Sergei Fedorov; briefly dated New England Patriots quarterback Tom Brady; Baltimore Ravens quarterback Kyle Boller; New York Giants tight end Jeremy Shockey; and tennis player Mark Philippoussis.

Tabloid Fodder

On the fateful night of November 4, 2004, Reid had a mortifying wardrobe malfunction at a highly-publicized photo shoot at Puff Daddy's 35th birthday party at Cipriani's Restaurant in New York City: the left strap on her evening dress fell as she took of her wrap, and exposed her left breast. Photos of Reid having, what seemed like much larger breasts than before, in addition to evident Scar tissue around Reid's nipple, confirmed rumors of breast implants. Though after Reid realized her dress had fallen she asked photographers to “be nice,” and not maliciously use the photos, the photographs were still widely distributed across the tabloids and internet. In August 2005, she publicly admitted getting breast augmentation surgery.

In October 2006, she admitted in an interview with Us Weekly that she also had liposuction. In the interview she also discusses how her plastic surgery "went wrong," and also explains why she decided to have plastic surgery done, saying that her breasts were uneven and that she had saggy skin. In the same Us Weekly interview, Reid's new plastic surgeon, Dr. Steven Svehlak, reported that he performed a procedure called a doughnut mastopexy to correct her original breast augmentation.

Even though Reid has been trying to revamp her image, her reputation as an air-headed blond was reaffirmed, on New Year's Eve 2007, when she hosted a large celebration in Chicago, and made several numerical errors in hosting the minute-long countdown for the year. A video of the incident circled the Internet, leading to wide-spread criticism of her intelligence and level of inebriation.

Though she has been trying for years to live down her party girl ways, and has recently made an attempt to, not only clean up her physical image by fixing her botched plastic surgery and appearing very pretty at celebrity events, but also by declaring that her reputation is exaggerated by tabloids to enhance magazine sales, it seems that at every turn, her notoriety as a club going, champagne chugging party girl is upheld by another drunken photo or infamous incident. It will take a lot of reformation to block those images from the mind of the American public.