List of Gilmore Girls Characters - Main Characters - Lorelai Gilmore

Lorelai Gilmore

Lorelai Victoria Gilmore, played by Lauren Graham, is the only daughter of Richard and Emily Gilmore. She is the mother of Lorelai "Rory" Leigh Gilmore. She became pregnant at the age of 16 but refused to marry Christopher Hayden, Rory's father, because she felt that a marriage at such a young age would not work out. Instead she ran away to the town of Stars Hollow, which is half an hour away from Hartford. In Stars Hollow she meets Mia, the owner of the Independence Inn. She begs Mia to hire her though she has no experience of any kind. Mia gives Lorelai a job as a maid and allows Lorelai and Rory to live in a converted potting shed behind the inn, where they live for most of Rory's early childhood. Lorelai eventually becomes the executive manager of the inn, which is the position she holds when the first season of the show opens.

Later, Lorelai and her best friend Sookie St. James find an old run-down inn called the Dragonfly Inn. When its owner dies, they decide to buy it. However, the Independence Inn is in a point of crisis due to a recent fire, causing the pair to question the timing of their new endeavor. Further they lack sufficient money for the purchase and renovation costs, primarily because Rory is denied financial aid at Yale, and Lorelai must come up with the money herself. To alleviate the situation, Rory asks her grandparents to lend her money for her tuition at Yale so that Lorelai and Sookie are able to purchase The Dragonfly Inn.

Lorelai is very witty and full of pop culture references. She has a very specific taste in movies, music, and TV. She has said she is a fan of the bands U2, Weezer, Metallica, and The Bangles. On Karaoke Night in season seven, she sings the song "I Will Always Love You" by Dolly Parton. Some of her favorite movies are His Girl Friday, Funny Face, and Casablanca, which she claims has "no bad parts." She is also addicted to coffee, takeout food, and she loves to shop for clothes and shoes. When her father gives her a check for $75,000 because the government was building a road on a property that Richard bought under her name, she exclaims, "That's 150 pairs of Jimmy Choos!"

Lorelai and the local diner owner, Luke Danes, have a close relationship throughout the show but don't start dating until the fifth season. They broke up due to the meddling of her mother and her ex, Christopher. They later got back together when Emily, Lorelai's mother, went to Luke and told him she would no longer interfere if they got back together. They end up reuniting, get engaged, and are a couple through the sixth season until the season finale, when Lorelai gives him an ultimatum and they break up. Throughout most of the seventh and final season of the show, they aren't together because Lorelai starts dating and then marries Christopher, but she and Christopher break up about mid-way through the season. Lorelai and Luke presumably get back together at the end of the season, as she kisses him at Rory's farewell party and the next morning, wears the necklace he gave her as she and Rory eat breakfast at the diner.