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Rise to Fame
He started modeling at 10, commuting from Covington, Louisiana to New York summers and eventually European runways, booking Calvin Klein and Gucci before he was old enough for a driver's license. He never finished high school, left for Europe instead. At 17 he pivoted to acting and trained with William Esper in New York. Lost opened the door in 2004 as Boone Carlyle. The Vampire Diaries in 2009 was the real engine: eight seasons as Damon Salvatore turned him into the kind of famous that comes with a very specific, very intense fanbase.
In the Spotlight
After The Vampire Diaries ended in 2017, he largely walked away from acting and moved to a farm outside Los Angeles. During the pandemic, he and co-star Paul Wesley co-founded Brothers Bond Bourbon, a brand built on their fictional Salvatore brotherhood. Whisky Advocate called it one of the fastest-growing whiskey brands in the U.S., with more than 100,000 cases shipped nationally. He executive produces environmental docs, runs the Ian Somerhalder Foundation, and served as a UNEP goodwill ambassador. The pivot was total.
Side Notes
His surname is technically borrowed. His biological great-grandfather was a wealthy English landowner who got a mistress pregnant, then paid an immigrant to marry her and give the child a name (Somerhalder). He started modeling so young he didn't graduate high school, and has since said he hated that era, resenting the reduction to a pretty face.