Ashley Benson was born and raised in Anaheim Hills, California. She started dancing competitively in ballet, jazz, hip-hop, and lyrical at age 4. She also enjoys singing, and has appeared in several choir groups and musicals. At age 4, she was asked to audition to sing solo at four Christmas services for her 2,500 member church. At 5 years old, she modeled in dance catalogs, and at age 8 was pursued by The Ford Modeling Agency and worked steadily in print. She made a very small appearance in Zoey 101 in the episode "Quinn's Date". She has also performed in NLT's music video "That Girl", One Call's music video "BlackLight" and Hot Chelle Rae's music video "Honestly." She recalled working on a movie set instead of a soap opera set "definitely weird", because she would spend days working on one or two scenes, whereas on the Days of our Lives set, she filmed two or three episodes a day. For Bring It On: In It to Win It, she had to attend cheerleading practice, which was "hard for [her], because [she is] afraid of heights." Nonetheless, she was "glad" to do her own stunts, even though she "wasn't expecting for it to be so hard."
In 2008, she appeared in the Lifetime TV movie Fab Five: The Texas Cheerleader Scandal, where she played head cheerleader Brooke of the Fab Five, which is based on a true story which took place at McKinney North High School in Texas. She "loved" working with her onscreen mother Tatum O'Neal, from whom she learned about acting. Furthermore, she was excited to land a supporting role in Bart Got a Room, which aired mainly on film festivals in 2008 before having a limited release in 2009, because it allowed her to work with William H. Macy. Benson starred in ABC's 2009 television series Eastwick. The show was based on John Updike's novel, The Witches of Eastwick, and the 1987 film adaption of the same name. Her character, Mia, was the teen-aged daughter of Roxie Torcoletti (Rebecca Romijn). The series was short-lived and only lasted 13 episodes before ABC cancelled the series due to low ratings. In December 2009, Benson was cast as Hanna Marin in the ABC Family Teen Drama television series Pretty Little Liars based on the book series by Sara Shepard. The series premiered to a successful 2.47 million viewers with Benson's performance being praised by critics. The series third season is set to premiere on June 5, 2012. The role is considered Ashley's breakout role. In 2010 Benson starred in the Made-for-Television film Christmas Cupid with Christina Milian and Chad Michael Murray which also aired on ABC Family. Her next project is Spring Breakers, a comedy drama, alongside, Selena Gomez, Vanessa Hudgens, and James Franco, which is due out in theaters sometime in 2013. She was seen in an episode of Punk'd alongside Joe Jonas, who was supposed to get punked but he saw one of the cameras and figured it out.
In 2008, she appeared in the Lifetime TV movie Fab Five: The Texas Cheerleader Scandal, where she played head cheerleader Brooke of the Fab Five, which is based on a true story which took place at McKinney North High School in Texas. She "loved" working with her onscreen mother Tatum O'Neal, from whom she learned about acting. Furthermore, she was excited to land a supporting role in Bart Got a Room, which aired mainly on film festivals in 2008 before having a limited release in 2009, because it allowed her to work with William H. Macy. Benson starred in ABC's 2009 television series Eastwick. The show was based on John Updike's novel, The Witches of Eastwick, and the 1987 film adaption of the same name. Her character, Mia, was the teen-aged daughter of Roxie Torcoletti (Rebecca Romijn). The series was short-lived and only lasted 13 episodes before ABC cancelled the series due to low ratings. In December 2009, Benson was cast as Hanna Marin in the ABC Family Teen Drama television series Pretty Little Liars based on the book series by Sara Shepard. The series premiered to a successful 2.47 million viewers with Benson's performance being praised by critics. The series third season is set to premiere on June 5, 2012. The role is considered Ashley's breakout role. In 2010 Benson starred in the Made-for-Television film Christmas Cupid with Christina Milian and Chad Michael Murray which also aired on ABC Family. Her next project is Spring Breakers, a comedy drama, alongside, Selena Gomez, Vanessa Hudgens, and James Franco, which is due out in theaters sometime in 2013. She was seen in an episode of Punk'd alongside Joe Jonas, who was supposed to get punked but he saw one of the cameras and figured it out.
