Acting like you were never obsessed with Blake Lively is just … not believable. Yes, she’s stepped into her fair share of controversies over the years (don’t get me started about the train wreck that was the It Ends With Us press tour), but she defined the 2000s.

Blake, who comes from a showbiz family, started acting as a child and got her big break in the 2005 movie The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants. She was only 16 when she played Bridget alongside the iconic cast of America Ferrera, Alexis Bledel, and Amber Tamblyn. At the time, I thought this was pretty much peak cinema.

Those who were not preteen girls when this movie came out would soon know Blake as Serena van der Woodsen on Gossip Girl, and her career exploded from there. There has been a lot of Blake slander circulating on social media as of late, particularly calling out her bad acting on Gossip Girl compared to costars Penn Badgley, Leighton Meester, and Ed Westwick.

I’m not here to dissect Blake’s acting or the certain atrocious storylines on Gossip Girl — like Serena and Dan both dating teachers, Serena getting drugged twice, and basically anything that happens during season 4. Even Blake called the role “comprising.”

“I would not be proud to be the person who gave someone the cocaine that made them overdose, and then shot someone and slept with someone else’s boyfriend,” she previously told Allure.

All I’m saying is her role as Serena in all 121 episodes of GG made her so insanely famous that it doesn’t seem like anyone actually cared if her acting was good (at least at the time).

After marrying Dan Humphrey during the Gossip Girl finale, Blake has since stuck to acting in movies. Only a few of her films have found box office success, like The Town and A Simple Favor, and she’s taken several years off in between projects while welcoming her and husband Ryan Reynolds’ four children. She has also done a fantastic job leveraging her A-list marriage (hello, Lady Deadpool) and has taken a page from Ryan’s entrepreneurial handbook by launching several of her own companies — Betty Buzz, Betty Booze, and Blake Brown.

Look, am I saying Blake Lively is perfect and above all criticism? Of course not, she’s as messy as any other 2010 starlet. I’m just here to point out that we were all once infatuated with her for a reason, and she’s had some good moments over the years. Check out these photos of Blake Lively then and now.

Blake Lively Photos: Then & Now

Blake Lively’s Early Film Career (2005-2006)

Blake Lively’s Gossip Girl Era (2007-2012)

Blake Lively’s Working Mom Era (2014-Present)