1. She’s a massive HIMYM fan

The Mexican-Honduran actress started her career in Bring It On: All or Nothing in 2006, alongside Hayden Panettiere and Solange Knowles. After that she got her big break in 2008 in The Secret Life of the American Teenager opposite Shailene Woodley, with the show running for five seasons.

Raisa was also seen with Tyra Banks in Life-Size 2 in 2018, the same year that Raisa made her debut on current sitcom Grown-ish.

Before playing the role of Valentina, who is Hilary Duff’s roommate in How I Met Your Father, Raisa was a huge fan of the original show. Speaking to The Daily Beast website, she said that her character is often compared to the “OG” Barney Stinson (played by Neil Patrick Harris) and confessed that the roles’ similarities meant they felt like huge shoes to fill.

“I did feel that way at first, but then I was like, [Valentina] is in a relationship, which is different. But maybe this is Barney in a relationship before Robin – I don’t know! So I’ll take it and I’ll own it,” she said.

2. She met bestie Selena Gomez back in 2007

Raisa and Gomez met when they visited a children’s hospital together back in 2007. “Selena and I were in the same group and we just clicked,” she said in an interview with Latina magazine.

A decade later, we learned that Raisa donated one of her kidneys to Gomez – four years her junior at 29 – who had complications from lupus, an autoimmune disease.

Raisa also posted their now-famous picture of the pair lying in adjoining hospital beds. “I am beyond grateful that God would trust me with something that not only saved a life, but changed mine in the process,” she wrote.

Last March, Raisa tweeted to raise awareness of kidney disease on World Kidney Day. Gomez then reposted her tweet thread and wrote, “Thank you for blessing me. I am forever grateful to you.”

3. She has frozen her eggs

The 33-year-old actress has opened up about her personal life and told People Magazine last year that she decided to freeze her eggs.

Raisa said that her decision was because she “doesn’t want to settle” and she wants to “want to wait for the right person” instead of rushing into a relationship because of her biological clock.

She recalled the experience as draining but she was glad she did it: “You’re basically pregnant. And I think the hardest part was, you know, I did get bigger and I didn’t have a baby.”

4. She was once harassed by a Trump supporter

The outspoken liberal took to Instagram in 2020 and shared that she was harassed by former president Donald Trump’s supporters. Raisa said she “had been ‘boxed in’ while driving in Southern California” during a rally, as People reported.

“They’re pointing at me and laughing at me, saying, ‘Ha ha.’ And literally, I almost crashed because they wouldn’t let me out,” she described. Raisa has always been vocal about her political stance in social media, in particularly Twitter, where she has raised issues concerning abortion and immigrants’ rights.

5. She once took shots with Christina Aguilera … and was topless in a hot tub with Tyra Banks

Not only is she friends with Selena Gomez, the social butterfly actress has tons more Hollywood friends. During an interview with The Daily Beast, Raisa retold an encounter she had at pop diva Christina Aguilera’s party.

“When her Latin album came out, I went to the party, and don’t ask me how, but I somehow sat next to her,” she remembered. “This was after I took a shot with her – and I don’t really like tequila shots like that.”

She also had a rather awkward spa experience with supermodel Tyra Banks before filming Life Size-2. “We get to the lockers, and she goes, ‘S***! I forgot my bathing suit!’ And at that point, I have my bathing suit in my hand, and I was like, ‘Oh my God’,” she said during an 2018 Jimmy Kimmel Live! interview, adding that she ended up going topless as a “compromise”.