Early life
Rodriguez was born to Javier Eddie RodrÃguez (who is Puerto Rican) and Carmen Milady Pared (of the Dominican Republic), and has a total of ten half-siblings or siblings. She was raised by her devoutly religious maternal grandmother.
RodrÃguez moved to the Dominican Republic with her mother when she was 8 and lived in Puerto Rico when she was 11, later settling in New Jersey. She dropped out of high school at age 17 and later earned her GED.
Career
RodrÃguez was a struggling actress when she ran across an ad advertising an open casting call for the low-budget, independent film, Girlfight. She beat out 350 other applicants for the part, and was cast in the starring role of Diana Guzman, a troubled teen who decides to channel her aggression by training to become a boxer. It was her first audition. The film was released in 2000, and RodrÃguez's performance was recognized by both critics and audiences.
Subsequently, she has had notable roles in other successful movies, including S.W.A.T., The Fast and the Furious and Resident Evil. In 2002, she was ranked #77 in Stuff magazine’s “102 Sexiest Women In The World�, and #34 in Maxim’s "100 Sexiest Women". 2002 also saw Michelle play Eden in the surfer girlpower flick 'Blue Crush'.
In 2004, RodrÃguez gave her voice to the hit video game "Halo 2", playing one of the Marines. She also currently provides the voice of Liz Ricarro in the Cartoon Network series IGPX. From 2005 to 2006, she played tough cop Ana LucÃa Cortez on the television series Lost during the show's second season (the character's first apparition was a flashback on season 1's finale, Exodus: Part 1). Rodriguez still keeps in contact with Lost co-star Cynthia Watros.
Rodriguez has recently completed filming of the horror movie The Breed, and has more recently been featured in her own episode of G4's show Icons.
Personal life
Rodriguez dated The Fast and the Furious co-star, Vin Diesel. In 2006, she expressed a romantic interest in Irish actor, Colin Farrell. In July 2006, Rodriguez told UK's Cosmopolitan magazine that she was not gay, but had "experimented" with women.. However, on November 14, 2006, her openly bisexual Bloodrayne co-star Kristanna Loken's comments to The Advocate were widely interpreted and reported as an admission that the two are in a serious relationship.[6][7] Rodriguez's representatives have neither confirmed nor denied the report.[8]
She was recently linked to Kylie Minogue's ex Olivier Martinez by a newspaper reporting her bisexuality as an established fact.[9]
Legal troubles
In March 2002, Rodriguez was arrested and charged for assaulting her female roommate.[10] The charges were later dropped after the roommate declined to press the allegations in court.[11]
In November 2003, Rodriguez went to court to face eight misdemeanor charges based on two road incidents: On July 22, she left the scene of an accident after hitting another motorist. And on November 4, she sped through an intersection while under the influence of alcohol. She had a suspended license both times.[12] In June 2004, Rodriguez pleaded no contest in Los Angeles to three of the charges: hit and run, drunken driving, and driving with a suspended license.[13] She went to jail for 48 hours, performed community service at the morgues of two New York hospitals, completed a three-month alcohol program, and was placed on probation for three years.[14]
In 2005, while filming Lost in Hawaii, Rodriguez was pulled over by Honolulu police multiple times; she was cited for driving 83 mph in a 55 mph zone on Oahu on Nov. 1 and was fined $357, paid a $300 fine for driving 90 mph in a 35 mph zone on Oct. 20, was fined $197 for going 80 mph in a 50 mph zone on August 24.[15] On December 1, 2005, Rodriguez and her Lost co-star, Cynthia Watros were separately pulled over and arrested for driving under the influence.[16] Rodriguez pleaded not guilty when arraigned,[17] but on the day of her trial in April 2006, she pleaded guilty to one charge of driving under the influence. She chose to pay a $500 fine and spend five days in jail instead of doing 240 hours of community service.[13] Rodriguez blamed her allergy-relieving steroids for the drunk driving and "energetic" behaviour.[18] The fact that her and Watros' characters were killed off led some fans to believe that it was a result of the arrests, however Rodriguez and producers said their exit from the show had been planned before the season began and the arrests were just coincidental.
Because the Kailua incident was a violation of her Los Angeles probation, Rodriguez was sentenced to 60 days in jail, a 30 day alcohol rehabilitation program and another 30 days of community service, including work for Mothers Against Drunk Driving, by a judge in Los Angeles on May 1, 2006.[19] Because of overcrowding, she was released from jail on the same day she entered it. As of June 2006, she will still have to serve the community service.[20] She wrote about the experience on her blog.[21]
