We first got hooked on our favorite guilty pleasure, "Pretty Little Liars," a decade ago when the show debuted on ABC Family on June 8, 2010. Since then, the "Liars" have found fame and grown up in front of our eyes before wrapping the show in 2017. In honor of the 10-year anniversary of the show's debut, we're taking a look back at how its stars have changed since Rosewood! Keep reading to see Aria and the rest of the gang then and now…
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Lucy Hale landed the role of Aria Montgomery — a creative, artsy Rosewood High student who's been described as an "old soul" — and started filming the show when she was 20. Before she starred on "Pretty Little Liars," Lucy made her big-screen debut in "The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants 2."
Lucy Hale's career flourished after she joined the show. The star hosted the Teen Choice Awards in 2013 — an event where she's picked up six awards over the years — and even pursued another passion outside of acting: music. Lucy released the country album "Road Between" in 2014. She's continued to act too, starring on the short-lived series "Life Sentence" for one season in 2018 and in three films the same year: "Truth or Dare," "Dude" and "The Unicorn." More recently, the actress appeared in the horror flick "Fantasy Island" and starred on 2020's "Riverdale" spinoff "Katy Keene." She's also made headlines for dating actors and musicians including David Henrie, The Cab keyboardist Alex Marshall, Chris Zylka, Graham Rogers, country singer Joel Crouse, Lawson drummer Adam Pitts, musician Anthony Kalabretta, Riley Smith and Ryan Rottman.
Shay Mitchell was 23 when "Pretty Little Liars" premiered. Though she originally auditioned for the part of Spencer Hastings, the casting department found her better suited to play the jock of the group, Emily Fields. Prior to this acting gig, Shay had been on another cult show: She played a model in one episode of "Degrassi: The Next Generation" in her native Canada.
"Pretty Little Liars" helped make Shay Mitchell a star! The popular social media staple launched a super-successful YouTube channel that has more than 6.6 million subscribers. She made her big-screen debut in 2016's "Mother's Day" alongside Jennifer Aniston, Kate Hudson and Julia Roberts and two years later appeared on the first season of Netflix's smash hit "You" alongside Penn Badgley. After that, she starred on Hulu's "Dollface" in 2019. Since joining "PLL," Shay — who started the luggage and travel line Beis in 2018 — has been romantically linked to co-star Keegan Allen, Drake's assistant Ryan Silverstein and music reporter Matte Babel, with whom she welcomed her first child, daughter Atlas, in 2019.
Ashley Benson was only 20 when "Pretty Little Liars" debuted in June 2010, but she was an old pro in Hollywood by then. She'd started her career back in 2004 at age 15 with a three-year stint on "Days of our Lives" then appeared in Lifetime movies and the fourth installment of the "Bring It On" franchise before landing the role of popular girl Hanna Marin on "PLL."
Ashley Benson has appeared on other hit television shows since bringing Hanna Marin to life on "Pretty Little Liars." The actress did episodes of "How I Met Your Mother" and "Family Guy" and starred alongside Selena Gomez and James Franco in 2012's "Spring Breakers." Like close pal Shay Mitchell, Ashley has amassed a ton of Instagram followers, but it's her personal life that gets the most attention these days. After being romantically linked to guys including Justin Bieber road manager Ryan Good and actor Nat Wolff, she got serious with model-actress Cara Delevingne in 2018. They split in April 2020 after about two years of dating and not long after, Ashley started casually seeing rapper G-Eazy.
Troian Bellisario joined the "Pretty Little Liars" cast at 24 but nabbed her first role at age 3 in the 1988 flick "Last Rites." She then went on to act alongside Mary-Kate Olsen and Ashley Olsen in 1998's "Billboard Dad" before making appearances in a few independent films. She landed the role of brainiac and group leader Spencer Hastings in the fall of 2009.
Aside from working in front of the camera, Troian Bellisario has also worked behind the scenes. The actress directed her first episode of "Pretty Little Liars" during the show's seventh season and wrote her own short film, "We Are Here in Haida Gwaii," in 2015. But she isn't putting acting behind her quite yet! She starred in 2017's "Feed" — a film she also wrote — alongside Tom Felton and had a role in 2019's "Where'd You Go, Bernadette." Troian also took a big step in her personal life in recent years: She married "Suits" star Patrick J. Adams in December 2016 and they welcomed their first child, daughter Aurora, in 2018.
Sasha Pieterse was the youngest of the crew when she joined the cast of "Pretty Little Liars," although she'd been acting for quite a while. She got her big break at age 6 as Buffy on the WB show "Family Affair" and snagged a role in "The Adventures of Sharkboy and Lavagirl in 3-D" three years later. She was cast as Alison DeLaurentis, the quintessential mean girl of the group, on "Pretty Little Liars," back in December 2009 when she was only 13! Sasha was 14 by the time the show debuted, which actually made her younger than Rosewood High School student Ali, who was supposed to be 15.
Sasha Pieterse has grown up on the small screen, playing Alison DeLaurentis throughout her teenage years. She released an album, which she called "country with Southern rock," in 2013 and has continued to act outside of "Pretty Little Liars." In 2014, she landed a role in the Paul Thomas Anderson flick "Inherent Vice" and starred in 2015's "Burning Bodhi" alongside Kaley Cuoco and Virginia Madsen. More recently, she came in 10th place on season 25 of "Dancing With the Stars" in 2017 and starred on the spinoff "Pretty Little Liars: The Perfectionists" in 2019, reprising her role as Alison, though the show was canceled after one season. In 2018, she married longtime love Hudson Sheaffer in Ireland and in May 2020 announced that they're expecting their first child together.
Ian Harding was 24 when he nabbed the role of Ezra Fitz on "Pretty Little Liars." The part of Aria's inappropriately older love interest and teacher at Rosewood High School was Ian's first major Hollywood role.
After serving as one-half of "Pretty Little Liars" fans' favorite couple, Ezria (comprised of his character, Ezra, and Lucy Hale's Aria), Ian Harding appeared on the web series "Flip the Script" opposite Lake Bell in 2017 and more recently in 2019 had a recurring role on "Chicago Med" and poppped up on the big screen in "Ford v Ferrari."
Keegan Allen was 21 when "Pretty Little Liars" premiered, giving him the chance to bring Toby Cavanaugh to life. His once-creepy and suspicious character ended up falling in love with Troian Bellisario's Spencer Hastings, which made him a fan favorite. Prior to landing this role, Keegan had made an appearance on Nickelodeon's "Big Time Rush."
Aside from acting, Keegan Allen pursued his other passion, photography, after joining the "Pretty Little Liars" cast. He published a book of photographs, "life.love.beauty," in 2015. He appeared on episodes of "What/If" in 2019 and voiced a character on "Rick and Morty" that same year. He was romanticaly linked to co-star Shay Mitchell early in the "PLL" run and more recently dated model Ali Collier.
Tyler Blackburn joined the cast of "Pretty Little Liars" at 23. Like his on-screen love interest, who was played by Ashley Benson, Tyler also did a stint on "Days of Our Lives" before joining the cast. He also appeared on Nickelodeon's "Unfabulous" before tackling the role of outsider and computer genius Caleb Rivers on "PLL."
Tyler Blackburn's character, Caleb, briefly left the show in 2013 for the short-lived 10-episode spinoff "Ravenswood." After returning to Rosewood, Caleb found himself in quite the love triangle — having dated both Ashley Benson's character, Hanna, and Troian Bellisario's Spencer. The actor appeared in the 2017 project "Hello Again" alongside Nolan Gerard Funk and Rumer Willis and more recently starred on "Roswell, New Mexico." The star made headlines in 2019 when he publicly came out as bisexual.