Vanessa Lachey

Minnillo was crowned Miss South Carolina Teen USA and went on to win the title Miss Teen USA in 1998, the first Miss Teen USA from South Carolina and also the first from South Carolina to be named the pageant's Miss Congeniality. She was a host on MTV's The Morning After (2003) and Total Request Live (2003–2007)[11] and became a New York City Correspondent for Entertainment Tonight in 2005. She hosted Miss Teen USA 2004 and Miss Universe 2007 beauty pageants.

After leaving MTV and Entertainment Tonight, Minnillo was featured in print and web-based advertising for Bongo Jeans' Spring/Summer 2007 collection.[12] She launched a makeup line with Flirt! Cosmetics, which debuted in August 2007 at Kohl's department stores.[13] In May 2006, Maxim magazine ranked Minnillo #15 in its annual Hot 100 issue.[14] She has been featured on the covers of numerous magazines such as Maxim, Vegas, Shape, Parents and Lucky.[15]

Lachey hosting TRL in 2005

Minillo was a finalist in E!'s competition to replace Brooke Burke as host of Wild On!.[8] She also hosted ABC's television series True Beauty, which premiered on January 5, 2009.The series followed 10 contestants who competed for $100,000 and to be featured in People magazine's 100 most beautiful people issue. The series was produced by Tyra Banks and Ashton Kutcher.[16] ABC renewed the series for a second season, which ran from May 31, 2010, through July 19, 2010. Lachey became a co-host of ABC's game show Wipeout in December 2011.[17]

Early in her career, she had small acting roles in numerous television shows, including That’s Life, City Girls, 30 Rock, The Bold and the Beautiful, Psych, Hawaii Five-O and Maybe It's Me. In 2008, she portrayed Ashlee in the CBS sitcom How I Met Your Mother, in the episode "No Tomorrow". She portrayed Amy in the parody film Disaster Movie (2008) alongside Matt Lanter, Kim Kardashian and Carmen Electra. The film was panned by critics, but it was a moderate box office success as it grossed nearly $35 million against a budget of $20 million.[18] In 2009, Minillo and Kim Kardashian shared scenes again, this time on CBS's police procedural television series CSI: NY.[19] "The ladies (Vanessa and Kim) portray two women who've managed to concoct a very interesting scheme that ends in murder," confirmed executive producer Pam Veasey.[19]

In 2011, Lachey had a guest role as Carmen Chao in NBC's sitcom 30 Rock. She played Tracy in NBC's sitcom Truth Be Told (2015), which revolved around two diverse couples, who are best friends and neighbors. The series ended after one season on December 25, 2015.[20] On September 6, 2017, Lachey was announced as one of the celebrities who will take part in the 25th season of Dancing with the Stars, competing against her husband, Nick. She was paired with professional dancer Maksim Chmerkovskiy.[21] Chmerkovskiy's wife, Peta Murgatroyd, was paired with Nick. On October 30, Lachey and Chmerkovskiy became the seventh couple to be eliminated from the competition, finishing in joint seventh place.[22]

On April 30, 2021, it was announced that Lachey was the first to be cast as a series regular in CBS' police procedural television series NCIS: Hawaiʻi. [23][24] Lachey joined the cast in her first leading series role as Jane Tennant,[25] the first female Special Agent in charge of the NCIS: Pearl.[26] It is a spin-off of the long-running series NCIS, and will be the fourth series in the NCIS franchise. Filming for the series began on the North Shore of Oahu on June 16, 2021.[27][28] The series debuted on September 20, 2021.[25][29]

On July 14, 2021, Lachey announced that her first book entitled Life from Scratch: Family Traditions That Start with You is released on November 16, 2021 by HarperCollins.[9][30] The cookbook was written by Lachey and Dina Gachman and it includes cooking recipes, parenting tips, birthday and date night ideas and personal stories.[31][32] Lachey also shared in the book how not having a relationship with her mother has impacted her approach on certain things and she had to use her own imagination to create celebrations and milestone markers that would become annual rituals for the family.[31][33] "Instead of constantly saying, 'I don't have a mom to show me how to do my makeup, what not to wear, how to be a good wife or a good mom,' I said, 'You know what? I can start that for my daughter and be that positive influence," she said in an interview with People magazine in July 2021.[9]