Background Lorelai Victoria Gilmore was born to Richard and
Emily Gilmore on April 25, 1968. Named after her paternal grandmother, Lorelai "Trix" Gilmore was raised in
Hartford, Connecticut, by her wealthy parents who wanted her to be a proper young lady of high society, go to an
Ivy League college, and marry a man with wealth and status. Her early life was complicated by the high expectations of an overbearing mother and
workaholic father; both parents wanted their daughter to fulfill the aspirations of their world of privilege. In her youth she attended private school, cotillions, and was a member of her school's
homecoming court. As a teenager, Lorelai was pregnant with her boyfriend Christopher's baby. Her parents discovered her pregnancy during a fitting for her
debutante dress. This caused great embarrassment and disappointment for her parents and Christopher's parents, Straub and Francine Hayden. Straub Hayden initially suggested that Lorelai have an
abortion; however, Emily would not allow this, and Richard suggested that Lorelai and Christopher should marry instead. Christopher agreed, but Lorelai refused, convinced that marrying so young simply wouldn't work out. When Lorelai realized she was in labor, she left a note for her parents and drove alone to the hospital. After giving birth to her daughter,
Rory, on October 8, 1984, at the age of 16, Lorelai lived with her parents at their mansion in Hartford briefly before running away to
Stars Hollow, a small fictional town in rural Connecticut, to find her own life. The owner of the local Independence Inn, Mia, gave Lorelai a job as a maid and let her and Rory live in the back in a renovated potting shed. The Independence Inn is where she met her best friend, Sookie St. James, who was executive chef at the Inn. Lorelai worked her way up over the years and was eventually promoted to executive management, her job as the show opens. Lorelai had almost no contact with her parents for many years after running away from home, except for visits during major holidays.
Storylines Rory gets accepted into Chilton Preparatory School, a private and expensive high school, when the series starts. Lorelai asks Emily and Richard to pay the attendance fees, and they agree to loan the money. In exchange for paying for Rory's tuition at Chilton, Emily and Richard instate mandatory "Friday night dinners", to which Lorelai reluctantly agrees, allowing them to get to know their granddaughter. Lorelai meets Rory's teacher Max Medina at Rory's first parent-teacher meeting at Chilton. They both become interested in one another and soon start seeing each other. When Lorelai wants to split, as it becomes too serious, she kisses Max in Chilton, provoking a scandal in the school and ending their relationship. While they are separate, Lorelai has a one-night stand with Christopher after a heated argument with her parents. Christopher proposes to her, but she rejects him, telling him he is not ready to care for Rory and her. Lorelai later rekindles her relationship with Max, and they become engaged. As their wedding is approaching, Lorelai has second thoughts and calls Christopher during her
bachelorette party. Suddenly, Lorelai calls off the wedding and decides to go on a road trip with Rory, during which they visit
Harvard University. Christopher comes back to town for Rory's debutante ball. During the evening, Lorelai and Christopher kiss, and she finds him changed, but he tells her he is now in a serious relationship with a woman named Sherry. Afterward, Lorelai and Sookie plan to open their inn, but the building they want, Fran Weston's inn, 'the Dragonfly', is not for sale. When Luke Danes' nephew Jess Mariano and Rory get into a car accident, Lorelai blames Jess, which leads to a serious argument between Luke and Lorelai. They reconcile only months later. Christopher returns to Stars Hollow, and after he tells Lorelai he has problems in his relationship with Sherry, they spend the night together before Sookie's wedding. They are both now ready to commit, but when Christopher learns Sherry is pregnant, he leaves Lorelai and returns to Sherry. In the third season, Lorelai meets Alex Lesman at a lecture about inns, and they begin dating. While she is on her way to the Friday night dinner, Lorelai comes across Max, and they catch up. They again run into each other at Chilton's bicentennial and share a kiss. After several days, the two meet at a Chilton parent committee evening, and Max makes it clear he does not want them to reunite. On Lorelai's birthday, Richard gives her a payout from an investment he had made at her birth; however, she decides to repay her parents for the loan, which shocks Emily. Fran dies, allowing Lorelai and Sookie to buy the Dragonfly. The Independence Inn closes, and Lorelai plans on using the money aimed at the Dragonfly to pay for
Yale University's fees; however, Rory refuses to let her pay for Yale and instead asks her grandparents for their financial help, reinstating the Friday night dinners in return. This then allows Lorelai and Sookie to buy the Dragonfly on Rory's graduation day. In the fourth season, Luke marries lawyer Nicole on a cruise, but they soon divorce, and Lorelai and Sookie begin the renovations of the inn. Richard forms a new partnership with his former associate's son, Jason Stiles, who happens to be an old
summer camp friend of Lorelai's. After he disagrees with Emily about Richard's new business launch party, Lorelai, furious, goes to talk to him, and at the end of their discussion, he invites her to dinner, but she refuses. Later, Jason succeeds in getting Emily's invitation to a Friday night dinner, and he and Lorelai get closer. She eventually accepts his invitation to dinner, and they start seeing each other without telling her parents. As she is running out of money to renovate the inn, Lorelai asks for Luke's help, who offers her a loan. When Emily organizes a dinner with Jason's parents, Jason's father, Floyd, announces he will sue his son and Richard because they have taken his clients. Floyd also tells Lorelai's parents about her relationship with his son, which shocks Emily. In the fallout of Floyd's announcement, Richard decides to associate with Floyd, jeopardizing Jason's career. When the former tells her he will sue her father, Lorelai breaks up with him. Luke, whose marriage to lawyer Nicole failed, finally realizes the woman he truly loves is Lorelai. She serves as a date for his sister's wedding and sees him in a new light. At the end of the evening, he tells her they should spend more time together. Lorelai and Sookie open their inn, and after a misunderstanding about Jason, Luke and Lorelai finally kiss for the first time. In the fifth season, Lorelai embarks on a relationship with Luke after discovering Rory has lost her virginity to married Dean, her first love and former boyfriend. Dean had married another girl after breaking up with Rory. This entanglement with a married man strains Rory and Lorelai's mother-daughter relationship. Eventually, Rory apologizes. Christopher panicked over Sherrie's departure to Paris, leaving him alone with their baby, and calls Lorelai for help. Rory later tells Christopher to leave her mother alone because she's happy with Luke. After no news following her visit to his house, she invites Christopher to the inn with Rory and notices the tension between them. Luke also worries when he learns about the dinner. When Christopher's father dies, Lorelai and Rory go to his house to support him. However, Lorelai does not mention her visit to Luke. Emily tells Christopher that the relationship between Lorelai and Luke is getting serious and that he should do something if he wants to end up with Lorelai. At Richard and Emily's wedding renewal ceremony, Lorelai finally admits to Luke her visit to Christopher when she notices his presence. Christopher tells Luke that his relationship with Lorelai won't last because he is destined to be with Lorelai. This leads to Luke breaking up with Lorelai, but they later reunite. Lorelai, however, remains furious at Emily for some time but eventually forgives her. Lorelai is worried about Rory's relationship with Logan Huntzberger and his family's influence on her. At the conclusion of the season, they steal a yacht and end up at the police station. Rory decides to take a year off from Yale, which upsets Lorelai, and when her parents, who initially agreed to help her, change their minds and permit Rory to move in with them, Lorelai decides to propose to Luke. In the sixth season, Lorelai and Rory do not talk for months, but Luke agrees to marry Lorelai, and they renovate her house. When Luke reveals that he cannot trust Lorelai after she receives a message from Christopher, the two fight. Lorelai and Rory finally reconcile, and she decides to return to Yale. Luke learns he has a daughter but does not tell Lorelai. Lorelai later finds out about Luke's daughter, and they postpone the wedding. When Christopher receives an inheritance, he starts to pay for Yale, and Friday night dinners are no longer mandatory. Luke begins to form a relationship with his daughter but insists that Lorelai stay out of it. After posing an ultimatum to Luke, which leads to their break-up, Lorelai sleeps with Christopher, and they start dating again. In the final season of the original series, Lorelai and Christopher jet off to Paris, where they impulsively get married. When Lorelai returns home and informs Rory and the rest of Stars Hollow, including Luke, that she and Christopher are married, she gets mixed reactions. Rory is upset at first but comes around since all she really wants is for her mom (and, for that matter, her dad) to be happy. Throughout the season, Christopher and Lorelai face some significant problems; the biggest one is when Lorelai needs to write a character reference for Luke so he can get partial custody of his daughter, April. Christopher finds a draft of the letter, and when reading it, he realizes that Lorelai still loves Luke. Lorelai tries to deny it but soon realizes they're better off as friends. In the end, Lorelai reunites with Luke. She realizes how much she loves Luke when she finds out that he was the one who planned Rory's goodbye party for the entire town. Lorelai realizes that Luke has been there for her from the beginning, and he loves her and her daughter. In one of the show's final scenes, Lorelai and Luke share a passionate kiss and get back together, finally ready to settle into a stable relationship. In the Netflix revival miniseries,
A Year in the Life, Lorelai and Luke have built a life together. They are living together in her home; he still runs the diner, and she still owns her inn, but they have not married. Throughout the four episodes, Lorelai goes through a lot, especially with her relationship with her mother. Lorelai and Emily have always had a strained relationship, yet it has gotten better over the years. In the revival, the two go to family therapy. Lorelai also goes on her own version of "Wild," where she tries to find herself. When she returns, she realizes her life is with Luke in Stars Hollow and is happy. The show ends with Lorelai and Luke's wedding at dawn in the center of Stars Hollow, where some of her closest friends, Michel, Lane, Kirk, and Rory, are present. In the very last scene of the show, Lorelai sits with Rory as they reflect on "it all". Suddenly, Rory turns to her mother and tells her she is pregnant. ==Character development==