“NCIS: Hawai’i” has debuted, introducing fans of the long-running procedural series to another location, another team, and a first for the franchise — because although there have been many strong women throughout the years, the “NCIS” universe has never had a woman in the lead role as Special Agent in Charge, until now (via TV Line). At NCIS Pearl, that woman is Jane Tennant, who is being played by Vanessa Lachey. CBS describes her, per Hawaii News Now, as a “diplomatic” yet “hard-charging” agent who is trying to balance duty and family. As the first episodes of the series have showed so far, she’s a soccer mom who knows exactly how and when to take charge.
As for Lachey herself, she has long been in the public eye. Unlike some other actors, though, her path to stardom — and the coveted role as the head of the third “NCIS” spinoff — has been a bit on the non-traditional side. If you’re interested in how this TV personality transformed into the head of an NCIS office, read on.
Vanessa Minnillo started out winning Miss Teen USA 1998
The Filipino-American actress was born Vanessa Minnillo at Clark Air Force base in 1980, according to the Phillippine Daily Inquirer. As an Air Force brat whose mother divorced her father and then married another serviceman, she moved constantly as a child, to places like Germany, Turkey (via Self), Florida and Nevada, finally settling in South Carolina with her father and stepmother to go to high school. There, she became Miss Teen South Carolina and then competed for the Miss Teen USA title, winning Miss Congeniality before taking the whole competition.
“It was the stepping stone I needed,” Minnillo said to the Phillippine Daily Inquirer about her pageant experience. “I gained confidence and found myself. I felt proud to be an Asian American and represent the USA as Miss Teen USA 1998. I felt that I was given an extra responsibility to do something with my title.”
She did go on to a career in entertainment, of course, once her high school days were done. And in the 2000s, she popped again on television.
Vanessa Minnillo started her career as a host
In her mid-20s, Minnillo returned to the spotlight, this time as a host. She became a backstage correspondent at the 50th annual Miss USA Pageant in 2001. Not long after that, MTV took her on as one of its veejays. She hosted “TRL” from about 2003-2007 and also hosted some of MTV’s New Year’s and spring break specials, along with documentaries, awards shows, and television productions, like “The Real World.” In 2004, she went back to the site of her first national-level triumph and co-hosted the Miss Teen USA Pageant. In 2006, she was tapped for the Oscar countdown pre-show (via Movieweb) and in 2007, she hosted the Miss Universe pageant. Starting in 2005, she has also been a long-time correspondent for “Entertainment Tonight.”
Minnillo’s hosting duties can be directly credited for landing her a husband. When Nick Lachey (who was, at the time, recently single) of 98 Degrees was working on a second solo album, he asked Minnillo, whom he knew from “TRL,” to be in his video for “What’s Left of Me.” He told Billboard Magazine that he thought putting her in the video might get the song played on the show. But when it did finally air, she was so nervous about seeing him she called in sick. “If you go back and look at the video, when he came to premiere it, I was so nervous and so crushing him that I didn’t show up for work that day,” she said.
The two married in 2011 and now have three children (per Instagram).
As Vanessa Lachey’s star rises, she gets better acting roles, too
While Vanessa Lachey’s hosting career was gaining traction, she also started acting. She started with an eight-episode run on “The Bold and the Beautiful” in 2001, followed by some guest spots on TV shows as unnamed characters and a TV movie or two. After “TRL,” though, she made a cameo in 2007’s “Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer” (via People) and started getting bigger, better roles. In 2008 and beyond, she guest-starred on series like “How I Met Your Mother,” “30 Rock,” “Psych,” and “Hawaii Five-O” and had regular or recurring roles on NBC’s forgettable “Truth Be Told” in 2015 and Fox’s “Dads,” More recently, she was also on episodes of “BH90210” and “Call Me Kat,” which she told Heavy was the first time someone had called her about being on a show. “They liked my work! So, it was a really great feeling,” she said.
She has also done a handful of movies, including 2008’s satirical “Disaster Movie” and Lifetime holiday TV films like 2018’s “A Twist of Christmas,” 2019’s “A Doggone Christmas” and 2020’s “Once Upon a Main Street.” Her latest role is very different in tone, but it’s one she feels born to do: She’s taking those military roots from her early years to “NCIS: Hawaii,” and has thus come full circle from her childhood.
“There’s this layer of being in the military that I don’t think you can learn,” she told TV Insider. “I understand because I firsthand lived with sacrifices that my father made for us and for the country. It definitely runs in my blood.”