Lima was born on 12 June 1981 in Salvador, Bahia, Brazil. Many sources stated that “Francesca” is her middle name, but Lima herself denied this in an interview to W Radio Colombia in 2010, and confirmed that her name is only Adriana Lima. Her parents are Nelson Torres, a carpenter, and Maria das Graças Lima, a social worker. Her father left the family when she was six months old, and Lima was raised only by her mother.

Her first magazine cover was Marie Claire Brazil in September 1998. Her first Vogue covers were the Italian Vogue Gioiello in September 2000, on their 20th Anniversary issue, and Vogue Brasil the next month.

Lima is probably best known for her work with Victoria’s Secret. She walked her first Victoria’s Secret runway in 1999, at age 17 and since being contracted as an Angel in 2000, she has appeared on subsequent shows ever since, opening the show in 2003, 2007, 2008, and 2010. In 2012, she opened the show for the 5th time less than two months after giving birth to her second child.

Lima became a GUESS? girl in 2000, appearing in that year’s fall ad campaign. She also appeared in the book A Second Decade of Guess? Images.

From 2001 to 2003, Lima was in a relationship with American singer Lenny Kravitz. They moved in together and got engaged. Lima was featured on the music video for Kravitz’s 2002 single, “Yesterday Is Gone (My Dear Kay)”.

In 2004, she was one of the five Angels promoting Victoria’s Secret nationwide in the so-called “Angels Across America” Tour, alongside Tyra Banks, Heidi Klum, Gisele Bündchen and Alessandra Ambrosio. She missed the 2009 show due to her pregnancy. Lima has appeared on several television ads for the brand, including the praised and criticized “Angel in Venice” commercial of 2003 with Bob Dylan.

Lima was listed in the 2005 Forbes’ edition of The World’s Best-Paid Celebrities Under 25. She ranked ninety-nine in the 2005 and 2006 Forbes’ edition of The Celebrity 100 lists. In 2012, she was listed in Forbes Celebrity 100 power list for earning more than 7 million between May 2011 and May 2012. In 2012, she ranked number eight in forbes’ “The World’s Most Powerful Latino Celebrities” list for earning more than 7 million dollars.

Lima was also voted on Maxim’s “Hot 100” 2007 at the No. 53 spot. She was voted No.1 as the Most Desirable Woman in 2005 by visitors of the men’s lifestyle website AskMen.com and placed 4th in 2006 and 2007, 10th in 2008, and 19th in 2009. She received the award for “Hottest Girl on the Planet” in the 2007 Spike Guys’ Choice Awards. Since November 2008, Models.com has featured her at number one on the list of the “Sexiest Models”. In July 2011, she was ranked No. 4 in the website’s “Money Girls” list. The website also lists her on “the Supers” list. The list, which has only 8 supermodels, is about supermodels that transcend the boundaries of the fashion industry and have public recognition in and out of fashion. In 2010, she was voted eighth in “FHM’s Sexiest Women in the World”. FHM ranked her at No. 6 in 2009, No. 21 in 2008 and No. 4 in 2007.

Her April 2006 GQ cover was the highest-selling issue of that magazine for the year. It was also one of the all-time best selling issues of the publication. The magazine named her “The World’s Most Voluptuous Virgin”.

In 2006, Lima ranked as the fifth highest paid supermodel. Between 2007 and 2008, she ranked as the world’s fourth highest paid supermodel by Forbes Magazine.

Lima is a devout Roman Catholic who attends Mass every Sunday. In April 2006, she told GQ that she was a virgin. “Sex is for after marriage,” she said. “[Men] have to respect that this is my choice. If there’s no respect, that means they don’t want me.” She also denounced abortion as a crime, and stated that she agrees with all of the Church’s teachings. Lima is known to bring a copy of the Bible with her backstage before she goes onstage. She has also stated that, before she became a Victoria’s Secret Angel, she had wanted to become a nun. Regarding her spirituality, Lima stated, “The church is in me — I always connect. If you’re connected with the divine and always have pure intentions with everything you’re doing, you’re protected by the angels. I’m very spiritual. I believe in nature, I believe in energy, I believe in spirits.”

Lima’s made her acting debut alongside Mickey Rourke and Forest Whitaker, in The Follow (2001), a short film in BMW’s series The Hire, opposite Clive Owen and directed by Wong Kar-wai. She also appeared with her fellow Angels in a guest spot playing herself in the CBS comedy series How I Met Your Mother in November 2007, in the episode “The Yips”. She also played herself, along with fellow Victoria’s Secret Angels, in the 2013 series The Crazy Ones alongside Robin Williams and Sarah Michelle Gellar. In 2008, Lima appeared on the American television series Ugly Betty, where she played herself and made friends with the series’ title character, Betty Suarez.

In 2008, she again fronted the cover of GQ, this time attracting a record number of visits to the publication’s website. She also appeared in the 2005 Pirelli Calendar and became the face of Italy’s cell phone carrier, Telecom Italia Mobile, a move that earned her the nickname, “the Catherine Zeta-Jones of Italy.”

In February 2008, Lima was featured on the cover of Esquire, re-creating the classic 1966 Angie Dickinson cover on Esquire’s 75th anniversary. She appeared only in shoes, diamonds and gloves for the November 2007 issue of Vanity Fair celebrating 20 years of supermodels with her fellow Victoria’s Secret Angels. In February 2008, she was chosen to be the face of Mexico’s Liverpool department store chain and launched the partnership with a press conference, runway show, and a summer campaign.

2008 continued with Lima hosting the What Is Sexy? program for the E! Entertainment Network and a July tour for the BioFit Uplift Bra launch. She was also featured in November’s Miracle Bra relaunch. Topping the year off, Lima wore the “Fantasy Bra” for the 2008 Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show. The bra, created by American jewelry designer Martin Katz, was set with 3,575 black diamonds, 117 certified 1 carat (200 mg) white round diamonds, 34 rubies, and two black diamond drops totaling 100 carats (20 g). Valued at over $5 million, the bra carried more than 1,500 carats (300 g).

Lima’s 2008 solo Victoria’s Secret’s Super Bowl XLII ad was the single most-seen ad of the game, watched by 103.7 million viewers.

Lima returned to the high fashion runway in 2009, walking for Givenchy. In the same year, after visiting Turkey, she signed a contract with Doritos to appear in print campaigns and television commercials which began airing in Turkey that April. She was also one of the faces of Givenchy for the Fall/Winter 2009 season.

In 2009, Lima married Serbian NBA player Marko Jarić on Valentine’s Day in Jackson Hole, Wyoming. In May 2009, it was reported that Lima had applied for Serbian citizenship, but it was never granted to her. Jarić and Lima have two daughters. On May 2, 2014, Lima and Jarić announced their separation after five years of marriage. The divorce was finalized in March 2016.

Lima does charitable work helping with an orphanage, “Caminhos da Luz” (Paths of Light), located in Salvador. She helps with construction to expand the orphanage and buys clothes for poor children in Salvador, Bahia. In 2009, she appeared on Var mısın? Yok musun?, the Turkish version of Deal or No Deal, where her prize money went to a hospital in Istanbul for children fighting leukemia.

In 2010, she again wore the Fantasy Bra, called the Victoria’s Secret Bombshell Fantasy Bra. The bra which weighs in at 142 carats with 60 carats of white diamonds and 82 carats of topazes and sapphires is worth 2 million dollars. She wore the fantasy bra again in 2014, along with Alessandra Ambrosio, with each bra valuing $2,000,000.

In 2010, Lima was ranked No. 46 on the 50 most popular women on the Web according to Google search results. A results from a market research study in 2011 about the UEFA Champions League released by Heineken, showed that 52% of men would rather watch their team lift the Champions League trophy than go on a date with Lima. McAfee ranked Lima as the 6th most “dangerous” celebrity in cyberspace in 2010. The ranking, relating to the use of the names of popular celebrities to lure people to websites that are laden with malicious software, ranked Lima number eight in 2011. In 2012, Complex ranked her 4th in the list of “The 100 Hottest Supermodels of All Time”.

In 2011, Lima signed a deal as a spokeswoman for Megacity by Votsu, a Brazilian social gaming company, to appear in their commercials. Lima has worked with the most established photographers in fashion such as Annie Leibovitz, Juergen Teller, Bruce Weber, J.R. Duran, Paolo Roversi, Inez van Lamsweerde and Vinoodh Matidin, Vincent Peters, Mario Sorrenti, Mert Alas and Marcus Piggott, Steven Meisel, David Sims, and Mario Testino.

In a 2011 interview with The Daily Telegraph, prior to the Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show, Lima said that for nine days before the show she drinks only protein shakes, and no liquids at all for the last 12 hours “so you dry out, sometimes you can lose up to eight pounds just from that.” She also stated that for the last three weeks before the show, she works out twice a day. The interview prompted criticism from the media commentators. Shortly afterwards, Lima defended herself in an interview with E!. “I know it’s very intense but … I just have an athlete’s mind and I appreciate doing this thing,” she said. “It’s not that I do crazy diets throughout the year. I just do it for this particular thing. After this show, I become normal again.” The Adriana Lima diet became one of the top five most searched diets on the web in 2012.

In early 2012, Turkish clothing company Mavi Jeans, contracted with Lima to be the face and spokesmodel for the brand. In the first quarter of 2012, her advertisement campaign increased sales by 50%. It also provided a 20% increase in stores and online traffic. Furthermore, her television commercial, which was watched by 28 million people, became a trending topic at Twitter and the number of people on Mavi’s Facebook page increased by 20%. Store officials at Mavi say the clothing Lima wore in the ad campaigns was met with so much demand that they ran out of stock. Due to her success rate with the company, the European and Russian branch of Mavi decided to make her the global face of the brand.

In February 2012, Lima became the only celebrity to ever star in two Super Bowl commercials in one game. She starred in Super Bowl XLVI commercials for online flower service Teleflora and Kia Motors which were watched by more than 200 million viewers. Her Kia Motors Super Bowl commercial – promoting the new Kia Optima – sent sales to their highest mark since the design debuted. Sales were up 31% from January 2012 and 138.6% from February 2012. The commercial was also voted No.3 out of the 55 commercials on USA TODAY and Facebook’s Super Bowl Ad Meter. A teaser of the commercial was released in movie theaters in January before the game. It is believed to be the first time a Super Bowl commercial premiered in movie theaters.

In July 2013, Spanish fashion brand Desigual announced that Lima would be the face of the brand during Barcelona Fashion Week Spring-Summer ’14, following Bar Refaeli in the same role in January 2013. In April 2014, Lima was chosen as the first brand ambassador of Desigual for the brand’s 30th anniversary. She has been named the “ambassador of la vida es Chula”, Desigual’s “life is cool” motto. Desigual marketing director, Borja Castresana, stated that Adriana “reflects our values and represents Desigual women who are confident, optimistic and full of life.” The campaign was launched on 20 April 2014, with television commercials in Spain, France, Germany, Italy, Austria and Belgium.

In 2013, she ranked as the third highest paid supermodel according to Forbes, with earnings of $6 million. In 2014, she ranked as the world’s second highest paid supermodel with earnings of $8 million.

In June 2014, she returned to her role as a Maybelline New York spokesmodel. She had been the face of the brand between 2003 and 2009. Lima was also chosen as the new face of Jason Wu Fall/Winter 2014 campaign. Jason Wu stated about Lima, “She’s sexy, and there’s this feline-esque prowess that felt appropriate for the clothes. And she’s got those eyes! She’s like our own Bianca Jagger. Adriana is a new take on the supermodel – she’s from a different era. At the end of the day, these ads are about the women and the sexiness, and I continue to choose women who inspire me.”

In September 2014, Lima starred in a campaign for luxury Swiss watch label IWC alongside Karolina Kurkova.

In 2015, she became the face of Vogue Eyewear and of Marc Jacobs’ fragrance Decadence. In the same year, she was ranked as the world’s second highest paid supermodel with earnings of $9 million.

On October 6, 2015, it was announced that Adriana will have her own wax figure at the Madame Tussauds New York. She is the first Victoria’s Secret Angel and the second Brazilian figure to join the Tussauds star lineup, after soccer star Pelé. Her wax figure was unveiled on 30 November 2015.

In April 2016, Lima became the face of Italian lingerie brand Calzedonia’s Swimwear collection. In July 2016, Lima was chosen by NBC alongside fellow Brazilian model Alessandra Ambrosio as the channel’s food and culture correspondents for the 2016 Summer Olympics.

In July 2016, Victoria’s Secret launched its own sports bra line, Victoria Sport, and Lima starred on the commercial alongside models Elsa Hosk, Romee Strijd, Jasmine Tookes and Josephine Skriver.

In January 2017, Lima starred in the ready-to-wear Spring/Summer 2017 campaign for the Italian brand Sportmax.

In January 2017, Lima was named “the most valuable Victoria’s Secret Angel” according to analytics company D’Marie, which conducted research that factored in social media likes, followers, sales conversions and engagement to come up with the results. “We’ve developed an algorithm that compiles over 24 specific metrics from each social media platform that determines an individual’s ranking amongst others’ in any variety of categories,” D’Marie explained.

Lima was the host and executive producer of the American reality competition show American Beauty Stars, which premiered on September 23, 2017 on Lifetime.

In 2018, Lima became a brand ambassador for Puma, and for the Brazilian-based footwear and accessories label Schutz.

In November 2018, Lima walked in her final Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show after participating in 20 catwalks for the brand.

In 2018, Lima made a cameo appearance as herself in the film Ocean’s 8.

In 2019, Lima was the face of Miu Miu cruise campaign, of Chopard Spring/Summer campaign. She was also the face of the Maybelline x Puma collaboration, of the Schutz resort 2019 campaign, and starred in the Palms Casino Resort commercial with others including Cardi B and Rita Ora.

In March 2019, she was chosen as the Fashion Icon honoree at the Daily Front Row Awards.