Personal Life
Giada Pamela De Laurentiis was born in Rome, Italy, the eldest child of actress Veronica De Laurentiis and her first husband, actor-producer Alex De Benedetti. De Benedetti was a close associate of Giada's maternal grandfather, film producer Dino De Laurentiis. As a child, Giada often found herself in the family's kitchen and spent a great deal of time at her grandfather's restaurant, DDL Foodshow. Her parents were married in February 1970 but were later divorced. After her parents' divorce, Giada and her siblings moved to Southern California where they took their mother's surname.
Her maternal grandmother was Italian film star Silvana Mangano. Her siblings include sister Eloisa, a makeup artist, and brothers Dino Alexander II (a Hollywood film editor who died of melanoma in 2003) and Igor. Her stepfather is producer Ivan Kavalsky.
De Laurentiis graduated from Marymount High School in Los Angeles and holds a bachelor's degree in social anthropology from UCLA (1996).
On May 25, 2003, she married Todd Thompson, a fashion designer for Anthropologie. The two had been dating since July 1989. The couple's only child, Jade Marie De Laurentiis-Thompson, was born on March 29, 2008. Jade is loosely named after her mother; "Giada" is Italian for "Jade." She currently doesn't plan on having more children. Although she acknowledged that "you don't really know what it's like to have kids until you have one of your own," De Laurentiis is focusing on her career, "I have so many babies: the show, Todd, and Jade."
De Laurentiis, dubbed "a petite powerhouse" with a "massive, oversized head" by Town & Country magazine, stands "just under five foot two."
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