Paula Patton is an American actress with an estimated net worth of about $3 million. She’s appeared in about 15 movies and 2 television shows throughout her nine-year acting career. Her most notable performances were in the movies Precious, Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol and Baggage Claim. Despite being in several mainstream films, Patton is most famous for her marriage and subsequent divorce to singer-songwriter Robin Thicke. Those are the facts that you’re probably familiar with when it comes to Paula Patton. As just mentioned, Patton’s name became more familiar to most as she went through a relatively messy situation with Thicke. The couple was married for nine years until infidelity rumors on Thicke’s part because rampant. They then separated. The couple has one child together.

With the basics covered let’s highlight five things you may not know about the beautiful 38-year old actress..

Smart

Paula Patton isn’t just good looks. She certainly isn’t riding Robin Thicke’s coattails either. Patton graduated from from Cal Berkeley, but spent time at USC film school as well during her undergraduate career. She did so well that she was granted a three-month assignment making films. According to some reports, she graduated from Berkeley Magna Cum Laude.

Discovery Channel

Patton is most famous for her film career. She started alongside Will Smith and Eva Mendes in the movie Hitch, but what you may not know is she spent some time working at PBS and the Discovery Channel. While working for the Discovery Channel she featured on the show “Medical Diaries”

Cool Neighbors

If you read general bios about Patton you see that she grew up in Los Angeles, California. Her father was a lawyer and her mother was a school teacher (good genes right?). What they don’t tell you is that she grew up across the street from 20th Century Fox so acting was pretty much inevitable. Imagine going outside to play in the yard? Think about all the cool things you’d see.

Backup Vocals

Paula isn’t just beauty and acting. Among her diverse talents is the ability to belt out a tune. She’s good enough that she sang bang up vocals for award-winning artist Usher on the song “Can U Handle It” from his Confessions album. To date, Paula hasn’t done much else in terms of singing, which is interesting because of her ex-husband’s dramatic success of late.

High School Sweethearts

One of the more well-known unknown facts about Patton and Thicke was that they were high school sweethearts. The two met in 1991 when Patton was 16-years old at an under-21 night club. Thicke asked Patton to dance, they started dating in 1993 and were married in 2005. For those of you keeping score at home that’s almost 22-years of being with Thicke. Sadly, they didn’t make it and separated.

Photo by Kevin Winter/Getty Images

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