Lisa Deann Hamlin (born Elizabeth Deann Rinna; July 11, 1963) is an American actress, television personality and model. As an actress, she is best known for her roles as Billie Reed on the NBC daytime soap opera Days of Our Lives and Taylor McBride on Fox's television drama Melrose Place. Between 2014 and 2022, Rinna starred on Bravo's hit reality television series The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills. Other television credits include being a contestant on NBC's The Celebrity Apprentice and ABC's Dancing with the Stars, as well as guest-starring roles on series such as Entourage, Veronica Mars, Community, The Middle, and American Horror Stories. Rinna made her Broadway debut in Chicago as Roxie Hart in June 2007.
She was the host of Soapnet's talk show Soap Talk (2002–2006), for which she earned four Emmy nominations for Outstanding Talk Show Host. She also hosted the M&M awards. Rinna has also written three books: Starlit; The Big, Fun, Sexy Sex Book; and The New York Times best-seller Rinnavation. Her other ventures include a fashion line for QVC named The Lisa Rinna Collection, the cosmetics collection Rinna Beauty, and the beverage company Rinna Wines.
Modeling[edit][]
In 1998, Rinna, while six months pregnant with Delilah Belle Hamlin, the first of Harry Hamlin's and her two daughters, posed for a nude pictorial ("Melrose Mom," its title, paid tribute to her role in Melrose Place) and cover shoot for the September issue of Playboy magazine. She later recounted the instructions given to her by Playboy photographer Deborah Anderson: "'I do not want you long and sinewy and angular and muscular. I want you soft...' This was really hard for me because being 35 years old and posing for Playboy, you want to amp it up." In May 2009, she posed again for Playboy and, this time, was also its cover model.
She has also graced the covers of CVLUX, Living Well, Soap Opera Magazine and Soap Opera Digest. Rinna has appeared in commercials and print ads throughout her career. In 2008, she appeared in print ads for Mars Inc's M&M candies with Joey Fatone as part of the "There's an M&M in everyone" advertising campaign. In 2012, Rinna appeared in an infomercial for abdominal muscle toner "The Flex Belt" alongside Adrianne Curry, Denise Richards and Janet Evans. She has appeared in a television commercial for Taco Bell and an infomercial for Winsor Pilates. In 2012 to benefit the charity Dress for Success, she modeled an adult incontinence brief made by Depend under a tight-fitting evening gown. She appeared in print ads and commercials for Depend and, according to reports, Depend paid her $2 million to be their celebrity spokesperson. In September 2019, she walked the runway for Kyle Richards' and Shahida Clayton's new women's clothing brand at New York Fashion Week.
In 2008, she released a series of workout videos called Dance Body Beautiful.
In popular culture[]
Rinna's staple bangs-and-back hairstyle and her cosmetically enhanced lips have long made her an easily recognizable figure in popular culture, and she has played parody versions of herself on series such as The Prince, The Shrink Next Door, and The Great North. A running joke in the public sphere surrounding Rinna, sometimes dubbed the "QVC queen," is her willingness to try anything and everything to put her name out there to 'secure a check', one popular one being the front-woman for adult diaper brand Depends. In 2022, a promotional image of Rinna as an M&M on the red carpet of The Academy Awards, from her TV Guide awards show hosting tenure fifteen years prior, went viral. The 'Lisa Rinna M&M' became an instant meme of Twitter and TikTok, usually accompanied by the K-pop song "After Like" by Ive.
Her 2014 hiring on The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills is credited with 'saving' the series midway through its run, delivering a substantial boost in ratings. Her hyperbolic communication style on the series has garnered extensive attention on social media, and she is credited with delivering some of the show's most iconic scenes. Rinna's dramatic response to costar Kim Richards threatening to expose information about her husband is considered a defining moment of the entire franchise, being parodied on programs such as RuPaul's Drag Race. Other notable moments include her teary-eyed reaction to Richards' bunny gift return at the 2017 reunion and her nonchalant questioning of co-star Dorit Kemsley's drug use at a dinner in Hong Kong. In 2020, a Buzzfeed profile on Rinna observed: "She’s created her own brand of iconic absurdity with her self-help catchphrases (“Own it, baby!!”), tearful controversies about stuffed rabbits, and one of the most aggressive glass-breaking scenes in Housewives history (a tall order in the franchise)."