- Born
- Birth nameLeigh Anne Boniello
- Height5′ (1.52 m)
- Leigh Anne Dorough was born on April 30, 1974, in Monmouth Beach, NJ, USA, as Leigh Anne Boniello to parents Ralph Boniello, who is Italian, and Karen Bonifide, a holistic doctor, a government worker, and florist, who is Dutch. She's the middle child with an older sister, Stacy O'Neil, a talent manager at The Firm that represents stars like Vin Diesel, Kevin Bacon, Rachel Weisz, and Scott Caan, and now manager at Brillstein Entertainment Partners, and a younger brother, Carr. Her mom used to raise her and her sister single-handedly and taught them about recycling and protecting the environment since her parents divorced when she was , and both remarried to Kevin Bonifide (her mom) in 1986 and (her dad) in .
Dorough's love and passion for entertainment started when she was five, listening to rock and reggae music. Both her parents were friends with Bruce Springsteen and many people in that camp, so she went to many concerts and had some backstage experience. While growing up, her mom had taken her and her sister to the movies as kids, whether it was an art-house movie in Red Bank or a summer blockbuster at the Monmouth Mall, which brought them into the fantastical world where the idea of becoming involved behind the scenes as a profession was exhilarating. When she was in her teens, she started going to concerts alone but missed the enjoyment of heading backstage and thought, 'Wait a minute, I want to be back there!' She was cool and chill, mostly well-rounded during student council, French club, and ski club, and was on the swimming and diving team while attending and graduating from Shore Regional High School. She has been a vegetarian since she was 18.
She broke both ankles at 13 and had to go to physical therapy to walk again. When she was in high school, her parents had a bad house fire.
After graduating high school in 1992, Boniello and Stacy moved to Los Angeles for college at the University of Southern California, where she got degrees in child psychology and filming. In 1997, they pursued careers in the entertainment business. Stacy started in the mailroom before becoming a talent manager at The Firm, Inc. for the stars. In contrast, Boniello started at Dreamworks, developing television projects with the head writers of Seinfeld.
She later became a development executive for Jerry Weintraub Productions at Warner Bros. Studios, where she worked on films such as Ocean's Twelve (2004), Tarzan, Nancy Drew (2007), Wild Bunch, and Westworld (2006).
At just 26, on December 6, 2000, the music enthusiast anxiously started a new job for the Backstreet Boys during their fame as the new webmaster. Her job was to manage the band's website and get content of the band doing stuff outside of the everyday show ritual. While Leigh had previously worked on websites for celebrities, including Claudia Schiffer, and commercials and music videos for Quentin Tarantino's company, A Band Apart, she had no hands-on experience with video and behind-the-scenes content. But she never expected that the job would lead her to her future husband's heart, and she found herself caught up in an epic made-for-TV romance.
After leaving the webmaster gig during the group's hiatus, she put in 50-hour weeks working on movies including Oceans 12, Westworld, and Nancy Drew as director of development, then a vice president at Jerry Weintraub Productions while helping out Howie with his Dorough Lupus Foundation and some of his real estate projects at Sweet D Inc.
With the whole experience of working behind the camera, Leigh never would have thought to perform in front for the first time. Alongside the other wives and their husbands, Boniello and her husband appeared in I Heart Nick Carter, where he was a groomsman. She would later appear in two music videos, God, Your Mama and Me in 2017 and No Place in 2019.
On November 30, 2022, with all of the Backstreet Boys families, Boniello, her husband, and their two boys were in Los Angeles for the filming of the Boys' holiday special "A Very Backstreet Holiday" that was scheduled to air for December 14, 2022.
In 2022, around the pandemic, Boniello launched her first line of eco-friendly handbags with Howie called Eslla, a luxury company she designed and founded with her friend of over a decade, Charlotte Wienckoski.
On December 6, 2000, Boniello met Howie Dorough following a job interview she completed for a webmaster gig when she sat in the Los Angeles office of BSB's management, never expecting it would lead to love. While the pair soon discovered they shared a love of theme parks, socializing, and food, one major difference was their musical tastes. Leigh knew little about BSB's music when she landed the job. Over time, they introduced each other to their favorite bands, with Howie getting more into Primus and Ben Harper while Leigh learned about Sade, Maxwell ... and BSB! Howie and Leigh dated for six years, and in 2006, he proposed to her in front of her family on New Year's. Howie has said he was more nervous to propose in front of her family than to perform in front of thousands of fans. A year later, On December 8, 2007, they tied the knot in a traditional Catholic ceremony at St. James Cathedral, where he was baptized and sang choir in Orlando, Florida. They now have two sons together. On May 6, 2009, Howie and Leigh had their first son James Hoke Dorough. On his birthday in August 2012, Howie announced on Twitter that he would be a father for a second time and that he and his wife were expecting another baby boy in February 2013. Their second son, Holden John Dorough, was born on February 16, 2013.
According to Howie, she has Eastern European, Dutch, Czechoslovakian, and Italian heritage.- IMDb Mini Biography By: Rosa
- SpouseHowie Dorough(December 8, 2007 - present) (2 children)
- Children
- RelativesPollyanna Dorough(Sibling)Stacy O'Neil(Sibling)
- Was cool and chill, mostly well-rounded during student council, French club, and ski club, and was on the swimming and diving team while attending and graduating from Shore Regional High School (1988-1992).
- She has an older sister, Stacy O'Neil, a talent manager at The Firm that represents stars like Vin Diesel, Kevin Bacon, Rachel Weisz, and Scott Caan, and now manager at Brillstein Entertainment Partners, and a younger brother, Carr. Her parents, Ralph Boniello, who is Italian, and Karen Bonifide, a holistic doctor, a government worker, and florist, who is Dutch, divorced when she was and both remarried to Kevin Bonifide (her mom) and (her dad).
- She has eastern European, Dutch, Czechoslovakian, and Italian heritage.
- Leigh loves homemade Italian food, though she hasn't eaten meat since she was 18.
- When she was in high school, her parents had a bad house fire and Leigh's family suffered another recently in 2009.
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