Gabrielle Union

Gabrielle Monique Union-Wade is an American actress, model, and author born on October 29, 1972, in Omaha, Nebraska. Raised Catholic, she grew up in Omaha and later Pleasanton, California, where she attended Foothill High School as a year-round varsity athlete in soccer, track, and basketball. She subsequently attended UCLA, earning a bachelor's degree in sociology. At age 19, she survived an attack and armed assault while working at a part-time job, an event that later informed her public advocacy.

Union began her acting career in the 1990s with appearances on television sitcoms and series including Moesha, Sister, Sister, Smart Guy, 7th Heaven, Friends, and Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. She made early film appearances in the 1999 teen comedies She's All That and 10 Things I Hate About You. Her breakthrough performance arrived in 2000 when she played Isis in the cheerleading comedy film Bring It On.

Following her breakthrough, Union took on roles in the television medical drama City of Angels and the romantic comedy film The Brothers. In 2003, she starred in her first leading role in Deliver Us from Eva and co-starred in the action film Bad Boys II. Over the remainder of the decade, her film credits included Cradle 2 the Grave, Neo Ned, The Honeymooners, Daddy's Little Girls, The Perfect Holiday, Cadillac Records, and Meet Dave. She also appeared in television projects such as Night Stalker, Ugly Betty, Life, and FlashForward.

In 2012, Union joined the ensemble cast of the romantic comedy Think Like a Man, later reprising her role in the 2014 sequel Think Like a Man Too. From 2013 to 2019, she starred as the lead character in the BET drama series Being Mary Jane. Her screen credits during this decade also included the films In Our Nature, Top Five, The Birth of a Nation, Almost Christmas, Sleepless, and Breaking In. She subsequently starred in the television series L.A.'s Finest from 2019 to 2020, served as a judge on America's Got Talent, and starred in the 2023 film The Perfect Find.

Beyond acting, Union has authored four books: the memoirs We're Going to Need More Wine (2017) and You Got Anything Stronger? (2021), and the children's books Welcome to the Party (2020) and Shady Baby (2021). Her business ventures include launching the hair-care brand Flawless by Gabrielle Union and designing a watch line in partnership with Invicta Watch Group.

Union is an active advocate for issues surrounding women's health, LGBTQ+ equality, and violence against women. For her work, she won a Best Actress award at the Palm Beach International Film Festival for Neo Ned and an NAACP Image Award for Being Mary Jane. She and her husband, Dwyane Wade, received the NAACP Image Awards President's Award for humanitarian work, and Union was named to Time's list of the 100 most influential people in the world in 2020.