Belen Rueda is a Spanish actress. She was born in Madrid. Her father was a civil engineer and her mother was a ballet instructor. She is the second of three children; her siblings are named Chus and Violeta. She and her family moved to San Juan, Alicante when she was a child because of her younger sister`s asthmatic problems.

Belen was married to Daniel Écija and had three children with him, Beliá, María and Lucía ; unfortunately, their second child died of a heart disease as a baby. She is now a divorcée. When Rueda was 18 years old she moved to Madrid to study architecture, but she left the university when she met an Italian man whom she later married.