Five years ago, Gossip Girl premiered on The CW, and so began the rise of Blake Lively. Today, Lively is a fixture on newsstands; we are pretty sure she is on at least one magazine cover every month. She makes all the big lists: Maxim's Hot 100, AskMen's Top 99, People's Most Beautiful, Vogue's Best Dressed, and Mel Kiper Jr.'s Big Board.

Just how much juice does Blake have? Consider this: Once she finally outgrew her TV boyfriend Penn Badgley, she ran around with Leonardo DiCaprio—who'd called it quits with Bar Refaeli—for six months, then took up with Ryan Reynolds, the former Mr. Scarlett Johansson. A month ago, she and Reynolds tied the knot.

Was Blake destined to be so damn ubiquitous? If not for Gossip Girl, would she be known today as whats-her-name from the Traveling Pants movies? Who knows. But we do know that tomorrow night, Gossip Girl begins its sixth and final season, and Lively is back as Serena van der Woodsen. To get in the mood for the first of the last 10 episodes, click through these 30 instantly classic Blake Lively shots.

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