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15 Famous People and Celebrities who Live in Chicago

The phenomenon of renowned individuals residing in Chicago can be attributed to various factors, such as the city’s rich cultural landscape, vibrant economy, and status as a major metropolis. Chicago’s rich history and diverse population have also contributed to its allure as a hub for creative and intellectual activity, attracting luminaries from various fields.

Additionally, the city’s exceptional educational and research institutions and thriving arts and entertainment scene offer a fertile breeding ground for talent and innovation, which can attract and retain famous personalities. Hence, it can be inferred that the convergence of these multifaceted aspects has established Chicago as a magnet for accomplished and celebrated individuals. In the article are 15 Famous People and Celebrities who Live in Chicago. 

1. Leon Kass

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Leon Richard Kass is an American physician, scientist, educator, and public intellectual. Kass is best known as a proponent of liberal arts education via the “Great Books,” as a critic of human cloning, life extension, euthanasia and embryo research, and for his tenure as chairman of the President’s Council on Bioethics from 2001 to 2005.

Although Kass is often referred to as a bioethicist, he eschews the term and refers to himself as an old-fashioned humanist who is concerned broadly with all aspects of human life, not just ethics.

Kass was born in Chicago to Jewish immigrants from Eastern Europe. He enrolled in the University of Chicago at age 15, graduating with a biology degree in 1958. The college was well known for its extensive core curriculum, and Kass studied the “great books” then prescribed by Chicago’s core. In 1961, Kass married the former Amy Apfel, a fellow graduate of the College of the University of Chicago.

2. Ed Krupp

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Edwin Charles Krupp is an American astronomer, researcher, author, and popularizer of science. He is an internationally recognized expert in the field of archaeoastronomy, the study of how ancient cultures viewed the sky and how those views affected their cultures. He has taught at the college level, as a planetarium lecturer, and in various documentary films.

Edwin Charles Krupp was born in Chicago, Illinois, on November 18, 1944, and his parents took him to many of the local museums as a child. In 1956 the family moved to Los Angeles where Krupp’s father, a mechanical engineer, worked on the Apollo program and then on the Space Shuttle.

3. Kanya West

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Ye born Kanye Omari West is an American rapper, singer, songwriter, record producer, and fashion designer. Born in Atlanta and raised in Chicago, West gained recognition as a producer for Roc-A-Fella Records in the early 2000s, producing singles for several artists and developing the “chipmunk soul” sampling style. Intent on pursuing a solo career as a rapper, he released his debut studio album, The College Dropout (2004), to critical and commercial success.

He founded the record label GOOD Music later that year. West explored diverse musical elements like orchestras, synthesizers, and autotune on the albums Late Registration (2005), Graduation (2007), and 808s & Heartbreak (2008). His fifth and sixth albums My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy (2010) and Yeezus (2013) also met with critical and commercial success.

4. Harmonia Rosales

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Harmonia Rosales is an Afro-Cuban American artist from Chicago. Rosales was born on February 6, 1984, in Chicago, Illinois, to Cuban-born Giraldo Rosales and Jamaican-Jewish illustrator Melodye Benson Rosales. She was raised in the Santería religious tradition. Having both parents’ ancestries rooted along the West African coast, Rosales meticulously entwines her adversities and cultural background to challenge the viewers’ ideas about identity and empowerment in her art.

5. Ike Barinholtz

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Isaac Barinholtz is an American actor, comedian, writer, director, and producer. He is best known for his starring roles in the comedy series MADtv (2002–2007), Eastbound & Down (2012), The Mindy Project (2012–2017), Bless the Harts (2019–2021) and The Afterparty (2022). Barinholtz was born in the Rogers Park area of Chicago, Illinois, and was raised in its Lakeview neighbourhood.

6. Barack Obama

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Barack Hussein Obama II is an American retired politician who served as the 44th president of the United States from 2009 to 2017. Obama, a member of the Democratic Party, was the first African-American president of the United States. He previously served as a U.S. senator from Illinois from 2005 to 2008 and as an Illinois state senator from 1997 to 2004, and previously worked as a civil rights lawyer before entering politics.

Obama was born in Honolulu, Hawaii. After graduating from Columbia University in 1983, he worked as a community organizer in Chicago. In 1988, he enrolled in Harvard Law School, where he was the first black president of the Harvard Law Review. After graduating, he became a civil rights attorney and an academic, teaching constitutional law at the University of Chicago Law School from 1992 to 2004. Turning to elective politics, he represented the 13th district in the Illinois Senate from 1997 until 2004, when he ran for the U.S. Senate.

7. Ben Savage

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Bennett Joseph Savage is an American actor. He played the lead role of Cory Matthews on the ABC sitcom Boy Meets World (1993–2000) and its Disney Channel sequel Girl Meets World (2014–2017). Savage was born in Chicago, Illinois, to Joanne and Lewis Savage. His grandparents were Jewish and from Poland, Ukraine, Germany, and Latvia, and Savage was raised in Reform Judaism.

8. Jennifer Hudson

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Jennifer Kate Hudson known by her nickname J.Hud, is an American singer-songwriter, actress, talk show host, and producer. Throughout her career, she has received various accolades for her works in recorded music, film, television, and theatre. Hudson became the youngest woman and second African-American woman to receive all four of the major American entertainment awards: Emmy, Grammy, Oscar and Tony (EGOT).

She also received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 2013. Time named her one of the 100 most influential people in the world in 2020. Hudson was born on September 12, 1981, in Chicago, Illinois. She is the third and youngest child of Darnell Donerson and Samuel Simpson.[8][9] She was raised as a Baptist in Englewood and attended Dunbar Vocational High School, from which she graduated in 1999.

9. Oprah Winfrey

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Oprah Gail Winfrey often referred to mononymously as Oprah, is an American talk show host, television producer, actress, author, and philanthropist. She is best known for her talk show, The Oprah Winfrey Show, broadcast from Chicago, which ran in national syndication for 25 years, from 1986 to 2011. She was dubbed the “Queen of All Media”, she was the richest African-American of the 20th century and was once the world’s only black billionaire. By 2007, she was sometimes ranked as the most influential woman in the world.

Winfrey was born into poverty in rural Mississippi to a single teenage mother and later raised in inner-city Milwaukee. She has stated that she was molested during her childhood and early teenage years and became pregnant at 14; her son was born prematurely and died in infancy. Winfrey was then sent to live with the man she calls her father, Vernon Winfrey, a barber in Nashville, Tennessee, and landed a job in radio while still in high school. Currently, Oprah lives a happy life in Chicago.

10. Hillary Clinton

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Hillary Diane Rodham Clinton is an American politician and diplomat who served as the 67th United States secretary of state under President Barack Obama from 2009 to 2013, as a United States senator representing New York from 2001 to 2009, and as First Lady of the United States as the wife of president Bill Clinton from 1993 to 2001.

A member of the Democratic Party, she was the party’s nominee for president in the 2016 presidential election, becoming the first woman to win a presidential nomination by a major U.S. political party; Clinton won the popular vote, but lost the Electoral College vote, thereby losing the election to Donald Trump.

Hillary Diane Rodham was born on October 26, 1947, at Edgewater Medical Center in Chicago, Illinois. She was raised in a Methodist family that first lived in Chicago. When she was three years old, her family moved to the Chicago suburb of Park Ridge. Raised in the Chicago suburb of Park Ridge, Rodham graduated from Wellesley College in 1969 and earned a Juris Doctor degree from Yale Law School in 1973. She still lives in Chicago.

11. Vince Vaughn

Vincent Anthony Vaughn is an American actor. Vaughn began acting in the late 1980s, appearing in minor television roles before attaining wider recognition with the 1996 comedy-drama film Swingers. He has appeared in several films in the 1990s, including the sports film Rudy (1993), the sci-fi adventure dinosaur film The Lost World: Jurassic Park (1997), the drama-thriller Return to Paradise (1998) and the remake of psychological thriller Psycho (1998).

Vaughn was born in Minneapolis, Minnesota, to a wealthy family. Vaughn grew up in Buffalo Grove, Illinois, where he played football and baseball and wrestled, although he has called himself “unathletic” and “very average” at high school sports. He then moved to Lake Forest, where he graduated from Lake Forest High School in 1988. He was introduced to musical theatre at a young age and decided to become an actor in 1987.

12. Chance the Rapper

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Chancelor Johnathan Bennett known professionally as Chance the Rapper, is an American rapper, singer-songwriter, and record producer. Born and raised in Chicago, Bennett released his debut mixtape 10 Day in 2012. He began to gain mainstream recognition in 2013 after releasing his second mixtape, Acid Rap. He then released his third mixtape, Coloring Book in 2016, which garnered further critical acclaim and attention

Chancelor Bennett was born in Chicago, Illinois. His father, Ken Williams-Bennett, was an aide to the late Chicago mayor Harold Washington and then-Senator Barack Obama. His mother, Lisa Bennett. Apart from his solo career, Bennett is a member of the Chicago collective Save money, and is the vocalist for the band the Social Experiment; they released the album Surf in 2015, led by trumpeter Nico Segal. He is also involved in social activism in the Chicago community where he resides.

13. Jim Belushi

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James Adam Belushi is an American actor. He is best known for the role of Jim on the sitcom According to Jim (2001–2009). His other television roles include Saturday Night Live (1983–1985), Total Security (1997), and Twin Peaks (2017). He is the younger brother of the late comic actor John Belushi and the father of actor Robert Belushi.

Belushi was born June 15, 1954, in Wheaton, Illinois, to Adam Anastos Belushi (1918–1996), an Albanian from Qytezë, Korçë, and Agnes Demetri Belushi (née Samaras; 1922–1989), who was born in Ohio to Albanian immigrants from Korçë.

He was raised in Wheaton, a Chicago suburb, along with his three siblings. After graduating from Wheaton Central High School in 1972, Jim Belushi attended the College of DuPage and graduated from Southern Illinois University Carbondale with a bachelor’s degree in Speech and Theater Arts in 1978.

14. Craig Robinson

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Craig Phillip Robinson is an American actor and comedian. He is best known for portraying Darryl Philbin on The Office (2005–2013). He also portrayed LeVar “Freight Train” Brown on The Cleveland Show (2009–2013), and Doug “the Pontiac Bandit” Judy on Brooklyn Nine-Nine (2013–2021). 

Robinson was born on October 25, 1971, in Chicago, Illinois, to a music teacher mother and an attorney father. He was raised on the South Side of Chicago and was brought up Methodist. He attended Whitney M. Young Magnet High School. He received his undergraduate degree from Illinois State University in 1994, and his Master of Education from Saint Xavier University. 

15. Aimee Garcia

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Aimee Sandimés Garcia is an American actress and writer. She is known for her television roles as Veronica Palmero on the ABC sitcom George Lopez, Yvonne Sanchez on the CBS period drama Vegas, Jamie Batista on the Showtime drama Dexter and Ella Lopez on the Fox/Netflix drama Lucifer.

Aimee Garcia was born in Chicago, Illinois. Her mother, Eloisa, is from Pachuca, Hidalgo, Mexico, and graduated from Northwestern University’s dental school; her father, Hector, is from San Juan, Puerto Rico, and was in the U.S. Armed Forces. Garcia started acting in commercials as a child and participated in theatre at seven years old. She grew up in Oak Park, Illinois, where she attended Fenwick High School.