Bill Rancic

William Edward Rancic was born in Orland Park, IL. Of Irish and Croatian descent, he graduated from Carl Sandburg High School and earned a bachelors degree from Loyola University Chicago. At 23, Rancic started his own Internet-based company, cigarsaroundtheworld.com, in a 400 sq. foot studio apartment. To promote his business, the budding entrepreneur wrote a letter to the top 10 radio stations in Chicago asking for their help in getting the word out about his business. Within days, Rancic had about 1,000 members and over the years, it eventually grew into a multi-million dollar national company. In addition to running his company, Rancic also planted the seeds to become a reality television star by auditioning for a dating show around 2002, but the show never made it to air.In 2004, Rancic competed on the popular NBC reality competition show "The Apprentice," for a chance to win a job as student to American billionaire and outspoken business mogul Donald Trump. Trading on a survival-of-the-fittest format, the show featured 16 contestants undergoing numerous business tasks ranging from selling lemonade on the streets of New York City to raising money for charity at a celebrity auction. While the anticipation of finding out who Trump would "fire" at the end of each episode, the series also benefited from a healthy dose of competitive bickering and backstabbing. The street-smart Rancic made it through the end of the competition as one of the finalists, and eventually won the coveted title. For his prize, he was given the opportunity to run one of Trump's companies and a $250,000 year's salary. After his one-year contract with Trump expired, the reality star reportedly stayed on with the Trump Organization and even appeared multiple times as a judge on subsequent seasons of "The Apprentice."Reality television not only gave Rancic fame and notoriety, but it also brought him and his soon-to-be wife, Giuliana DePandi, together. The couple started dating around 2006 after she interviewed him a few times for "E! News." They later married on the Italian island of Capri in 2007. During the first years of their marriage, the couple maintained a long-distance relationship since Rancic operated his business out of Chicago and DePandi worked in Los Angeles. Their experience as newlyweds was well documented on the popular reality series "Giuliana & Bill," which also chronicled the couple's unsuccessful attempts to have children, including fertility treatments and a miscarriage.Rancic and his wife were very public about their attempts to get pregnant, and used their celebrity status to help erase the stigma surrounding miscarriages. In 2011, the couple faced yet another personal issue, this time regarding DePandi's shocking diagnosis of breast cancer. After a lumpectomy failed to eradicate all the cancer cells, Rancic and DePandi opted for the more radical solution of a double mastectomy and reconstructive surgery. Throughout this painful ordeal, Rancic and his wife remained candid about their experiences, and always showed a united front. On Aug. 29, 2012, the couple's journey to have a child came full circle when they became parents of a baby boy, Edward Duke, born via gestational carrier. Rancic made the official announcement on Twitter, tweeting "The 'Duke' has landed!"By Candy Cuenco