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Howard Gensler is a veteran journalist who’s worked at the Philadelphia Daily News, TV Guide and the Philadelphia Inquirer and is a founding editor of bettorsinsider.com.
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Top 10 Most Famous Maryland Celebrities: Famous People From MD
Maryland is famous for more than crabs. At BetMaryland.com, your home for Maryland sportsbooks coverage, we wanted to take a hyper-localized approach to see which celebrities raised in the state are the most well-known.
We used a weighted system between AhRefs.com Keywords Explorer and Google Trends to look at the most searched Maryland celebrities over the past 12 months. We averaged both statistics to determine the Top 10.
A Maryland celebrity was defined as a person who resided in the state in their formative childhood and teenage period for at least five years. We included living actors/actresses, singer/songwriters, TV personalities, athletes, comedians, dancers and social media influencers.
While you’re here at BetMaryland, check out our reviews of the best Maryland sports betting apps too.
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Most Well-Known Celebrities from Maryland in 2023
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Big Man Durant At The Top
In first place is 6-foot-10 NBA star Kevin Durant, 34, from Prince George’s County. Durant attended two different high schools in Maryland, plus Oak Hill in Virginia, before choosing the University of Texas for college. For his freshman year at Texas, Durant won every player of the year award and declared for the NBA draft.
He was the second pick in the 2007 draft, taken by the Seattle SuperSonics, after Greg Oden was chosen by the Portland Trail Blazers. Durant was named Rookie of the Year in Seattle, his only season there before the franchise relocated to Oklahoma City. Durant later won two NBA titles with the Golden State Warriors and left there to play for the Brooklyn Nets. This past season the Nets traded him to the Phoenix Suns. He is a 13-time NBA All-Star and the 2014 league MVP. His Suns have +600 odds to win the NBA title in the 2023-24 season for those using the Caesars Sportsbook Maryland promo code. They are third favorite behind the defending champion Nuggets (+450) and the Celtics (+500).
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Other Celebrities in Top Five
Jada Pinkett-Smith, 51, was born in Baltimore and attended the Baltimore School of the Arts. She has starred on TV and in movies and performed in the band Wicked Wisdom. In 1997, she married Will Smith and the couple has two children, Jaden and Willow. A Chris Rock joke about her bald head – she suffers from alopecia – made for one of the most watched moments in Academy Awards history when Smith went on stage and slapped Rock across the face.
No. 3 is Buffalo Bills wide receiver Stefon Diggs, who was raised in Montgomery County and attended Our Lady of Good Counsel High School. Diggs, 29, played three years at the University of Maryland before being selected in the fifth round of the 2015 NFL Draft. In 2018, he caught the “Minnesota Miracle” to defeat the New Orleans Saints in the final seconds of a playoff game. In 2020, the Vikings traded Diggs to Buffalo, where he has teamed with QB Josh Allen. Customers using the BetMGM bonus code Maryland can get +800 odds on the Bills winning the Super Bowl this season.
Actress Anna Faris, 46, from Baltimore, comes in at No. 4. Faris is best known for her roles as Cindy in the “Scary Movie” franchise, for the sitcom “Mom,” in which she starred opposite Allison Janney, and for the podcast “Unqualified.” Faris was married to actor Chris Pratt from 2009 to 2018 and is now married to cinematographer Michael Bennett.
No. 5, actor Penn Badgley, also hails from Baltimore. Badgley got his break as a teenager on “The Young and the Restless,” but became a star thanks to the CW series “Gossip Girl” and later the Netflix series “You.” He has been married to singer Domino Kirke since 2017. They are raising two children.
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Rounding Out The Top 10
Goldie Hawn, 77, grew up in Takoma Park and attended Montgomery Blair High School in Silver Spring. She began her career as a dancer in the 1960s, became well-known for her giggles and go-go outfits on the sketch comedy show “Laugh-In.” Her film career began in 1969 with her role in “Cactus Flower” and Hawn has been a move star ever since, in films such as “The Sugarland Express,” “Shampoo,” “Foul Play,” “Private Benjamin,” “Swing Shift,” and “The First Wives Club.” She is mom to Kate Hudson, Oliver Hudson and Wyatt Russell and has been the partner of actor Kurt Russell for 40 years.
Nos. 7 through 10 are all from Baltimore. Carmelo Anthony, 39, was a basketball star at Towson Catholic, then in college at Syracuse. He just retired after a long, prolific career in the NBA.
Julie Bowen, 53, has been in movies, but she made her mark on TV, starring in “ER,” “Ed,” “Boston Legal,” “Lost,” and, of course, as mom, Claire, on “Modern Family.”
Julia Louis-Dreyfus, 62, is arguably the greatest female sitcom actress since Lucille Ball, having starred in “Seinfeld,” “The New Adventures of Old Christine,” and “Veep.” She has won 11 Emmys and has been married to Brad Hall since 1987. They have two children.
He almost always was first in competition, but for our list swimming legend Michael Phelps, 38, comes in 10th. Phelps was raised in the Rogers Forge area and is the most decorated Olympian of all time with 28 medals (23 of them gold) over four Olympic Games from 2004 to 2016. Curiously, the nation’s greatest female swimmer, Katie Ledecky, is also from Maryland.
The best Maryland sportsbook promos are here at BetMaryland so check them out when you go to place a bet.
Maryland Celebrities FAQs
Yes, Michael Phelps is one of the most famous celebrities from Maryland. The decorated Olympian hails from Baltimore, MD.
The former NBA MVP Kevin Durant is from Prince George's County, Maryland, or as local Marylanders call it, PG County. Durant is the most searched for Maryland celebrity at over 1.2 million in search volume over the last year.
Star NFL wide receiver Stefon Diggs is from Gaithersburg, Maryland. In fact, Diggs played college football in his home state at the University of Maryland.
Bill Belichick may have been born in Nashville, Tennessee, but he was raised in Annapolis, Maryland, where his father coached at the US Naval Academy.
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