Updated July 2026 | At 51, Eva Longoria isn’t slowing down — she’s accelerating. This year alone she’s directed Kim Kardashian in a new Netflix comedy, walked the Cannes red carpet night after night, landed a second season of her CNN travel series, and made headlines for an unexpected reunion with ex-husband Tony Parker, fifteen years after their very public divorce. Here is the complete picture: her height, weight, age, body measurements and husband, her career from Corpus Christi to Hollywood mogul, and everything happening in her world right now.
1. Who Is Eva Longoria?
Eva Jacqueline Longoria was born on March 15, 1975, in Corpus Christi, Texas, the youngest of four daughters born to Enrique and Ella Longoria. Her family’s roots in Texas run remarkably deep — Longoria has spoken publicly about her family’s Mexican-American heritage stretching back generations in the state, predating Texas statehood itself, a history she considers central to her identity and to the advocacy work she’s built her career around.
Longoria grew up on a ranch outside Corpus Christi and studied kinesiology at Texas A&M University–Kingsville, graduating in 1998. She later returned to school while already a working actress, earning a Master’s degree in Chicano Studies with an emphasis in political science from California State University, Northridge, in 2013 — a detail that surprises many fans who know her only from her television and film work, but one that speaks directly to how seriously she’s taken her advocacy for the Latino community throughout her career.
Longoria has often described being the youngest of four sisters as formative in unexpected ways — she’s said in past interviews that she didn’t initially feel like the most conventionally confident of her siblings, and that acting became, in part, a way of finding a voice distinct from her sisters’. That family dynamic, combined with her working-class Texan upbringing, shows up repeatedly in how she talks about her career: less as a story of overnight discovery, and more as a long accumulation of deliberate choices, each one building toward greater independence and creative control.
Today, more than two decades into her career, Longoria is regularly described in industry coverage not simply as an actress but as one of Hollywood’s most successful multi-hyphenates — a title she’s earned by consistently expanding what she’s in charge of, project by project, rather than staying within any single lane.
2. Eva Longoria Height, Weight, Age & Body Measurements
Here are Eva Longoria’s vital stats:
- Height: 5 feet 2 inches (157 cm)
- Weight: 54 kg (approximately 119 lbs)
- Body Type: Hourglass
- Body Measurements: 34-24-34 inches (Bust-Waist-Hip)
- Bra Size: 34C
- Eye Color: Brown
- Hair Color: Dark Brown
- Date of Birth: March 15, 1975
- Age (2026): 51 years old
- Birthplace: Corpus Christi, Texas, United States
3. Career Beginnings: From Corpus Christi to Hollywood
Before Hollywood ever entered the picture, Longoria’s early years were shaped by ranch life outside Corpus Christi and a large, close-knit Texan family. She has described her upbringing as one defined by hard work and self-reliance, values she attributes directly to the women in her family — particularly an aunt whose advice about never depending on anyone else for anything stuck with her well into adulthood. After graduating from Texas A&M University–Kingsville with a degree in kinesiology, Longoria briefly considered a career path entirely outside entertainment before an interest in acting pulled her toward Los Angeles.
Like many actors of her generation, Longoria’s path to visibility ran first through modeling and commercial work, before she landed her first significant break on daytime television.
4. Career Beginnings: From Soap Operas to Desperate Housewives
Longoria’s first major break came on the daytime soap opera The Young and the Restless, where she played Isabella Braña from 2001 to 2003 — a role that gave her national visibility and taught her the discipline of working at soap-opera pace, churning out pages of dialogue on a near-daily basis. Daytime television has long been a proving ground for actors who go on to bigger things, and Longoria’s stretch on the show sharpened both her range and her work ethic ahead of the role that would define the next decade of her career.
But it was a role in 2004 that changed everything. Longoria was cast as Gabrielle Solis, the glamorous, sharp-tongued former model turned suburban housewife, in ABC’s ensemble dramedy Desperate Housewives, alongside Teri Hatcher, Felicity Huffman, Marcia Cross and Nicollette Sheridan. The show became a genuine cultural phenomenon, running for eight seasons from 2004 to 2012, and turned all five of its leading women into household names. At its peak, Desperate Housewives was one of the most-watched dramas on American television, combining soap-opera plotting with dark comedy and a distinctly suburban satire that resonated well beyond the United States, syndicating successfully around the world.
Longoria earned a Golden Globe nomination for the role and, notably, revealed in 2026 that she has never actually gone back and watched the show since it ended — a candid admission that got picked up widely, given how enduring the show’s popularity has remained more than a decade after it went off the air. It’s a detail that captures something often true of performers on long-running hits: for Longoria, Wisteria Lane was a job she poured eight years of her life into, not something she necessarily revisits for nostalgia.
The show also marked the beginning of Longoria’s transition from actress to businesswoman. Even while still filming Desperate Housewives, she began developing production projects of her own — a rare move at the time for an actress still mid-run on a hit series, and one that set the tone for the rest of her career.
5. Film Career: From Rom-Coms to Prestige Drama
Alongside her television work, Longoria has steadily built a film career that spans broad studio comedy and more grounded, personal storytelling. She starred opposite Eugenio Derbez in Overboard (2018), a Spanish-language-inflected remake of the 1987 comedy, which became one of the highest-grossing Spanish-language films released in the United States that year. She also appeared in Table 19 (2017) alongside Anna Kendrick, and lent her voice to Dora and the Lost City of Gold (2019), introducing her to an entirely new, younger audience.
On the more personal end of her filmography, Longoria starred in Frontera (2014), a drama dealing directly with U.S.–Mexico border issues — a project that reflected the same advocacy instincts that have run through her nonprofit work and her graduate studies. Taken together, her film choices reveal a consistent pattern: broad commercial work that keeps her visible and bankable, balanced against smaller projects clearly chosen for personal or cultural significance rather than box office alone.
Her voice work on Dora and the Lost City of Gold also reflects a broader pattern in her more recent career choices: an increasing willingness to take supporting or ensemble roles in family-friendly, four-quadrant projects rather than insisting on leading-lady billing at every turn. That flexibility has arguably helped her stay relevant across a wider range of audiences than many actresses who came up alongside her in the mid-2000s network television era, several of whom have found it harder to transition into film, family entertainment and unscripted hosting simultaneously the way Longoria has managed to.
6. Building a Production Empire
Rather than simply riding out her Desperate Housewives fame, Longoria used the platform to build something much bigger. She founded her production company, originally known as UnbeliEVAble Entertainment, producing television projects including Devious Maids and the docuseries Reversing Roe. In 2023, she expanded that ambition significantly, co-founding Hyphenate Media Group, a full studio and holding company designed to give her much greater creative and financial control over her projects — a clear signal that Longoria, by her fifties, had shifted from being simply an in-demand actress to being an owner and architect of her own Hollywood ecosystem.
Her directing career has followed a similarly ambitious arc. Longoria made her feature directorial debut with Flamin’ Hot(2023), the biographical film about the invention of Flamin’ Hot Cheetos, telling the story of Richard Montañez, a janitor at Frito-Lay who claimed credit for inventing the iconic snack. The film was notable both for its subject matter — another example of Longoria gravitating toward stories centered on Latino ambition and reinvention — and for marking her transition into feature directing after years of directing television episodes.
She has continued directing since, and in 2026 has been deep in production on The Fifth Wheel, a Netflix ensemble comedy starring Kim Kardashian, Nikki Glaser, Fortune Feimster and Brenda Song — a major studio comedy that places Longoria squarely behind the camera on one of the year’s most talked-about comedic casts. Directing a project built around Kardashian, whose own transition into scripted comedy has drawn significant industry attention, represents a notable vote of confidence in Longoria’s ability to shape performances from major names well outside her own usual on-screen wheelhouse.
Industry observers have increasingly framed Longoria’s directing work as the more significant long-term story of her career, even relative to her acting. Where many actresses of her generation have struggled to make the jump into directing studio-backed projects, Longoria has done it twice now in quick succession — first with a based-on-a-true-story drama, and now with a starry ensemble comedy — suggesting a directing career built for range rather than a single niche.
7. Eva Longoria: Searching For — Her Hit CNN Travel Series
Beyond scripted film and television, Longoria has become one of CNN’s most reliable unscripted hosts through her travel and food series Eva Longoria: Searching for…, which has taken her through Mexico, Spain and, most recently, France. The France season proved successful enough that CNN announced a second cycle of “Searching for France” in May 2026, with a new season set to debut in 2027 — Longoria, in a statement announcing the renewal, said she was thrilled to return to one of her favorite places in the world.
The series blends Longoria’s personal connection to food and culture with straightforward travel journalism, and has become a significant part of her professional identity — proof that her appeal extends well past scripted acting into hosting, storytelling and cultural commentary. Each season follows a similar format: Longoria traveling regionally within a single country, sitting down with local chefs, home cooks and producers, and using food as a lens into broader cultural and historical context — an approach that’s distinguished the series from more conventional celebrity travel shows built primarily around scenery and restaurant recommendations.
The show’s success has also fed back into Longoria’s broader business ambitions. As an executive producer on the series through Hyphenate Media Group, alongside Cris Abrego, Rachelle Mendez and Shauna Minoprio, Longoria isn’t simply hosting the show — she owns a stake in producing it, meaning its renewal for a second France cycle is a direct business win for her company as much as it is a win for her as an on-screen personality.
8. House of the Spirits and Continued Acting Work
Longoria hasn’t stepped away from acting either. In 2026, she’s attached as a producer and cast member on Amazon Prime Video’s limited series adaptation of Isabel Allende’s beloved novel “The House of the Spirits,” working alongside Chilean creatives Francisca Alegría and Fernanda Urrejola to bring the sweeping multi-generational story to the screen — a project that reflects her ongoing commitment to Latino storytelling both in front of and behind the camera.
She also recently completed work on “Christmas Karma,” an upcoming holiday film in which she takes on the role of the Ghost of Christmas Past — notably ditching her signature brunette hair for curly gray locks for the part, a striking visual choice that drew significant attention when photos surfaced in late 2025.
9. Cannes, Red Carpets and 2026’s Fashion Moments
Longoria has had a highly visible year on the red carpet circuit. At the 2026 Cannes Film Festival, she attended multiple events across the festival’s run — including the Global Gift Gala, where she served as honorary chair, and the “Histoires de la nuit” screening, where she wore a bridal-white Tamara Ralph couture gown with towering René Caovilla platform sandals as part of her ongoing ambassadorship with L’Oréal Paris. Her stylist, Maeve Reilly, has become a consistent collaborator, pairing Longoria with luxury footwear brands including Flor de Maria, Santoni, Rene Caovilla and Aquazzura across the festival — a partnership that’s turned Longoria’s Cannes appearances into some of the most reliably photographed moments of the festival’s fashion coverage each year.
She later brought a more understated look to the 2026 FIFA World Cup kickoff event at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum, opting for minimalist black mules paired with a Max Mara open-back maxidress — a notable shift from the sky-high platforms she’d worn throughout Cannes just weeks earlier, and a reminder that Longoria’s style range extends well beyond red-carpet maximalism into more relaxed, still deliberate everyday dressing.
Fashion commentators have increasingly pointed to Longoria as one of the more consistent style presences of her age group in Hollywood — someone who treats red carpet dressing as a genuine creative outlet rather than an obligation, working closely with the same small circle of collaborators across multiple seasons rather than chasing a different stylist or trend every appearance.
10. Business Ventures Beyond Entertainment
Longoria’s ambitions extend well past film, television and production. She co-founded Casa del Sol, a tequila brand, bringing the same hands-on approach to the spirits industry that she’s applied to her production company — reportedly involved in decisions ranging from the agave sourcing to the bottle design. She has also been involved in the restaurant industry, having previously co-owned Beso, a Hollywood restaurant blending Mexican and Latin American cuisine, reflecting the same cultural pride that runs through her television and advocacy work.
Taken together with Hyphenate Media Group, these ventures paint a picture of an entertainer who, by her fifties, has deliberately diversified far beyond acting income — treating her name and cultural platform as the foundation for a broader business portfolio, much like a small number of her Hollywood peers who’ve successfully made the same transition from performer to entrepreneur.
What sets Longoria’s approach apart from many celebrity-branded businesses is the consistency of theme running through nearly all of it: Latino culture, food, and community sit at the center of Casa del Sol, Beso, her CNN travel series, and much of her film and production work alike. Rather than licensing her name to unrelated product categories, Longoria has largely built ventures that reinforce and extend the same cultural identity she’s spent her entire public career representing — a strategy that industry analysts have pointed to as part of why her business ventures have generally avoided the credibility problems that sink many other celebrity-branded companies.
11. The Tony Parker Reunion That Made Headlines
One of the more unexpected Eva Longoria stories of 2026 involved her second husband, retired NBA star Tony Parker. The two were married from 2007 to 2011, and their divorce made significant headlines at the time amid reports that Parker had been unfaithful. In June 2026 — fifteen years after their split — the pair reunited while both happened to be filming projects in France, and Longoria shared a photo of the two of them smiling together. The moment was picked up widely as a rare, warm glimpse of two former spouses on good terms so many years after a difficult, public divorce, and stood out precisely because Longoria has generally kept her past relationships out of the spotlight in the years since.
12. Eva Longoria’s Husband: José “Pepe” Bastón
Eva Longoria has been married to Mexican media executive José Antonio “Pepe” Bastón since 2016. Bastón, a prominent businessman in Latin American media, and Longoria share a son, Santiago Enrique Bastón, born in June 2018, when Longoria was 43.
Longoria has spoken candidly about the timing of becoming a mother relatively later in life, explaining that for years, her career and independence had been her singular focus, and that having Santiago arrive when it did felt like exactly the right moment. She has credited the clarity that came with motherhood as a major factor in how she now approaches her career, describing herself as far more selective and deliberate about the projects she takes on since becoming a parent.
Unlike her marriages to Tyler Christopher and Tony Parker, both of which played out heavily in the tabloid press, Longoria’s relationship with Bastón has remained relatively private by comparison — she shares glimpses of their family life on social media periodically, particularly around Santiago’s milestones, but has generally kept the day-to-day details of the marriage itself out of interviews. That relative privacy has become something of a hallmark of this current, later chapter of her personal life, standing in contrast to how public her earlier relationships were.
13. Turning 51: Eva Longoria’s AARP Cover Story
In March 2026, Longoria was the subject of a high-profile cover feature in AARP The Magazine’s April/May issue, framed around her approach to aging, reinvention and creative control in her fifties. In the interview, Longoria described feeling energized rather than slowed down by turning 51, saying she doesn’t want to waste her remaining days and that thinking about how she spends her time is precisely what makes getting older exciting to her. She also credited an aunt’s advice about self-reliance — never depending on anyone else for anything — as a guiding principle throughout her life and career.
The feature framed Longoria as a case study in reinvention: an actress who became a director, then a studio owner, then a television host, all while raising a young son and maintaining one of the more recognizable public profiles in American entertainment. The choice of AARP The Magazine as the platform for the interview was itself notable — a deliberate move away from the celebrity-gossip press and toward a publication whose readership skews directly toward the demographic Longoria was speaking to: people navigating their own reinvention in midlife, rather than fans simply tracking her red-carpet appearances.
It’s a positioning that fits neatly alongside the rest of her 2026 output. Between the AARP cover, the CNN travel series, and her increasingly business-forward public statements, Longoria has spent much of this year deliberately shaping her public narrative around competence, independence and longevity — rather than the more conventional entertainment-press focus on relationships, red carpets or age itself.
14. Advocacy and Philanthropy
Beyond entertainment, Longoria has spent much of her career deeply involved in advocacy for the Latino community and for children with special needs. She co-founded Eva’s Heroes, an organization supporting young people with intellectual and developmental disabilities, in honor of her older sister, who has an intellectual disability. She has also served on the boards of organizations including the National Council of La Raza (now UnidosUS) and has been a long-time supporter of Homeboy Industries, the Los Angeles-based gang-intervention and rehabilitation program.
Her graduate studies in Chicano Studies weren’t incidental to this work — Longoria has described her academic research and her activism as deeply intertwined, with her advocacy informed directly by the political science and community organizing work she pursued at CSU Northridge. Over the years, she’s also been an outspoken advocate for Latino political engagement more broadly, frequently using her public platform to encourage voter participation and community organizing within Latino communities across the United States.
This throughline — from a kinesiology degree, to a Chicano Studies master’s, to decades of nonprofit board work, to films like Frontera that engage directly with border and immigration themes — sets Longoria apart from many of her Hollywood peers. Her advocacy isn’t a late-career pivot or a publicist-driven cause; it’s been a consistent, decades-long throughline running alongside her acting and business career the entire time.
15. Why Eva Longoria Matters in 2026
What makes Longoria’s current chapter genuinely interesting isn’t any single project — it’s the sheer range of what she’s doing simultaneously. In the same year, she’s directing an A-list comedy cast for Netflix, fronting a returning CNN travel series, producing and starring in a prestige literary adaptation, walking Cannes red carpets as a beauty ambassador, running a spirits brand, and reuniting warmly with an ex-husband from a marriage that once dominated tabloid coverage. Few entertainers in their fifties are operating across that many lanes at once, and fewer still are doing it while raising a young child.
Longoria’s own framing of this moment — the AARP interview, in particular — suggests she sees this breadth not as scattered, but as the payoff of decades spent deliberately building toward exactly this kind of independence. For a woman who has spoken about self-reliance as a value instilled by her family since childhood, 2026 looks less like a comeback and more like the moment all of that groundwork finally converged.
Key Facts Overview
| Attribute | Detail |
|---|---|
| Full Name | Eva Jacqueline Longoria Bastón |
| Date of Birth | March 15, 1975 |
| Age (2026) | 51 years old |
| Birthplace | Corpus Christi, Texas, USA |
| Profession | Actress, Director, Producer, TV Host |
| Height | 5 ft 2 in (157 cm) |
| Weight | 54 kg |
| Body Measurements | 34-24-34 inches |
| Bra Size | 34C |
| Eye Color | Brown |
| Hair Color | Dark Brown |
| Education | B.S. Kinesiology (Texas A&M–Kingsville); M.A. Chicano Studies (CSU Northridge) |
| Breakout Role | Gabrielle Solis in Desperate Housewives (2004–2012) |
| Husband | José “Pepe” Bastón (m. 2016) |
| Son | Santiago (b. 2018) |
| Previous Marriages | Tyler Christopher (2002–2004), Tony Parker (2007–2011) |
| Production Company | Hyphenate Media Group (co-founded 2023) |
| Directorial Debut | Flamin’ Hot (2023) |
| 2026 Projects | The Fifth Wheel (director), House of the Spirits, Searching for France S2 |
Frequently Asked Questions
Q1: How old is Eva Longoria? A: Eva Longoria was born on March 15, 1975, making her 51 years old in 2026.
Q2: Who is Eva Longoria’s husband? A: Eva Longoria has been married to Mexican media executive José “Pepe” Bastón since 2016. They have one son together, Santiago, born in 2018.
Q3: Was Eva Longoria married to Tony Parker? A: Yes. Longoria was married to retired NBA star Tony Parker from 2007 to 2011. In June 2026, the two were photographed together in a warm reunion while both were filming in France, fifteen years after their divorce.
Q4: What is Eva Longoria doing in 2026? A: She’s directing Netflix’s ensemble comedy The Fifth Wheel starring Kim Kardashian, producing and starring in Amazon’s House of the Spirits, hosting a renewed season of CNN’s Searching for France, and was featured on the cover of AARP The Magazine discussing turning 51.
Q5: What is Eva Longoria best known for? A: She’s best known for playing Gabrielle Solis on ABC’s Desperate Housewives from 2004 to 2012, and has since built a major career as a director and producer, notably directing 2023’s Flamin’ Hot.
Q6: How tall is Eva Longoria? A: Eva Longoria is 5 feet 2 inches (157 cm) tall.
Q7: Does Eva Longoria have children? A: Yes, she has one son, Santiago Enrique Bastón, born in June 2018 with her husband José Bastón, when Longoria was 43.
Q8: What charity work is Eva Longoria involved in? A: She co-founded Eva’s Heroes, supporting young people with intellectual and developmental disabilities, and has been involved with organizations including UnidosUS and Homeboy Industries.
Q9: What films has Eva Longoria starred in? A: Her film credits include Overboard (2018), Table 19 (2017), Dora and the Lost City of Gold (2019), and Frontera (2014), alongside her directorial debut, Flamin’ Hot (2023).
Q10: Does Eva Longoria have any business ventures outside acting? A: Yes. She co-founded the tequila brand Casa del Sol, previously co-owned the Hollywood restaurant Beso, and co-founded the studio and production company Hyphenate Media Group in 2023.
Sources: Just Jared, E! Online, WWD, Variety, AARP The Magazine, Wikipedia