Indie Series Awards nominee for Best Supporting Actress (Comedy) and Outstanding Supporting Actress, Kirsten Vangsness is an actress and writer from the United States. She is mainly popular for starring in the role of FBI Technical Analyst Penelope Garcia on the CBS drama series Criminal Minds.
Early life and education
Known for her beauty and talent, Kirsten Vangsness was born Kirsten Simone Vangsness on 7th July 1972 to Errol Leroy Vangsness and Barbara Mary. She is of Norwegian, Bergen, Gol, and Oslo descent.
CAPTION: Kirsten Vangnsess
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Her nationality is American and she is of white ethnicity.
Kristen spent some of her childhood days in Porterville, California, and then she moved to Cerritos, California.
Education
There Kirsten Vangsness got enrolled at Cerritos High School. She graduated from there in June 1990. Later, she joined Cypress College and then California State University, Fullerton.
Personal life
In 2006, Kristen was spotted with Melanie Goldstein having romantic love affairs as a boyfriend and girlfriend. They were together for several years and they also got engaged.
They promised to be each other’s loving spouse in the days to come but they called off this engagement in 2013 and broke their vows for being together for the rest of their life.
In early 2015, Kirsten Vangsness revealed that she is now in a relationship with her new boyfriend. In November 2015, she revealed her boyfriend to be Keith Hanson.
Keith Hanson is an actor and writer and they are now engaged.
She is five feet and seven inches in her height.
Career and net worth
Before she began her professional acting career, she worked as a substitute teacher, child counselor, restaurant hostess, personal assistant, grant writer, and murder mystery dinner theater actress.
After Kirsten Vangsness won the 15 Minutes of Female Best Actress Award, she was offered a role in the theater play. In 1998, she starred the role of Tooth Fairy in the short movie Sometimes Santa's Gotta Get Whacked.
Half a decade later, she appeared in TV series like Phil of the Future and LAX.
Her breakthrough role as an actress came in 2005 after she began starring the lead role of Penelope Garcia in an American police procedural crime drama television series Criminal Minds, starring Matthew Gray Gubler, Joe Mantegna, and Thomas Gibson.
She is also a writer and has written two episodes of this TV series.
Kirsten Vangsness has also published several of her writings in Los Angeles Times Magazine.
Net worth and salary
For her role on Criminal Minds, Kirsten Vangsness earned a salary of $100,000 per episode in 2013.
She is now aged 43 years old and her net worth is $3 million dollars.