Blackburn was born in Burbank, California.[3] He has one older sister and three younger brothers.[4]
Blackburn has a 4 inch long scar on his left shoulder. This was caused due to the removal of a benign bone tumor at the age of 10.[5]
Career
Acting
Blackburn began performing in 2004 and appeared on the series Unfabulous on Nickelodeon. In the following year he was a teacher in the short film The Doers of Coming Deeds. In 2008, he made a cameo in the film Next of Kin. In 2009, Blackburn appeared in Cold Case and Rockville CA, a webseries launched by Josh Schwartz. In 2010, he appeared on Days of Our Lives, Gigantic, and was also in the independent film Peach Plum Pear.[6]
In October 2010, Blackburn was cast in a recurring role as Caleb Rivers in the television series Pretty Little Liars.[7] He was upgraded to series regular for the third season starting in the summer of 2012.[8]
In May 2013, it was announced that Blackburn would star in the 2013 Pretty Little Liars' spin-off Ravenswood.[10][bettersourceneeded]
In March 2018, Blackburn joined the cast of The CW series Roswell, New Mexico as Alex Manes, a character initially introduced as a love interest to Michael Vlamis's Michael Guerin.[11] Blackburn remained a series regular on the show during its four-season run until it ended in 2022.
Subsequently, Blackburn released an extended play titled "Find My Way - EP" in 2013 which was released on Apple Music.[13]
Blackburn has also recorded several songs with Novi, including a feature on Novi's song titled "Can't Love Me". The song was then featured in the twelfth episode of Roswell, New Mexico.[14] on which Blackburn starred on during its four-season run. Blackburn also performed a song called "Would You Come Home" on the thirteenth episode of season two of Roswell, New Mexico as his character, Alex Manes.
Personal life
Through an interview with The Advocate on April 19, 2019, Blackburn publicly came out as queer and bisexual, saying he had identified as bisexual since he was a teenager, but that biphobia had contributed to him suppressing his feelings towards men until his late 20s.[15]