Before Ian Somerhalder was melting hearts on The Vampire Diaries and making you question your relationship status with just one smoldering glance, he was just a small-town Louisiana kid living the swamp life — broke, barefoot, and basically living inside a seafood buffet.
In a new interview that probably made every Whole Foods shopper weep, the 46-year-old heartthrob spilled the crawfish-flavored tea on his humble beginnings in the wetlands.
“My dad always said, if you take more than you give, nature slaps you with karma — and possibly a hurricane,” Ian said, sounding like a wise Cajun Yoda. “Nature always bounces back. It’s us humans that end up crying in the Whole Foods parking lot over $38 shrimp.”
Ian went on to say, “We were super poor… like, counting-change-for-Kool-Aid poor. But also, we were rich. Like, ‘Oh look, I casually have 8 freezers full of seafood like a low-key Poseidon’ kind of rich.”
And when he says seafood, he’s not talking about a few sad fish sticks. No, no. We’re talking Louisiana blue crab, Gulf shrimp, redfish, speckled trout, amberjack — basically everything that would make Gordon Ramsay propose marriage.
“I’m talking fresh tuna,” Ian said, channeling his inner fish sommelier. “Like, sashimi-level seafood before I even knew what sushi was. We were eating like kings… kings with no money, but amazing cholesterol levels.”
But then, 16-year-old Ian — who was already modeling for Versace because apparently life just hands out cheekbones like that — had a bougie awakening.
“I walk into a restaurant in like 1994, and they’re charging $100 for a dozen blue crabs. I was like, ‘Wait a sec, I literally have a thousand of those chilling in the freezer between the ice pops and a deer leg,’” he recalled, probably while twirling his perfect vampire hair.
So while the Somerhalder family didn’t exactly have stacks of cash, they were living the high life — Louisiana style. No money? No problem. Just pass the gumbo and duck when the shrimp starts flying.
