Who Are the Most Famous People from Brussels (Past and Present)?

You know that old joke about how nobody can name five famous Belgians? In Brussels, people laugh along, then start counting on their fingers, and quickly run out of fingers. After all, the Belgian capital is the birthplace of a Hollywood star, the singer voted Greatest Belgian by viewers of RTBF (the French-language public broadcaster), the father of Tintin, and the man who founded modern anatomy.

It has also welcomed geniuses from elsewhere who never really left. So, who are the most famous people from Brussels? It all depends a bit on what you call a Brusseler, and that’s where the story gets fun. From our windows on the Grand-Place, we can see the facade where Victor Hugo once unpacked his bags and the one where Karl Marx used to put the world to rights. Here is our portrait gallery, from hometown heroes to adopted Brusselers, with a few surprises along the way.

Born here or adopted, who counts as a Brusseler?

You may not know it, but “Brussels” actually refers to two different things. First, there’s the Brussels-Capital Region, made up of 19 municipalities, including Schaerbeek, Ixelles, and Uccle. Then there’s the City of Brussels, one of those 19 municipalities, which covers the historic center, Laeken, Haren, and Neder-Over-Heembeek, among others. In practice, few people bother with the distinction, and someone from Uccle calls themselves a Brusseler just as proudly as someone from Schaerbeek. In this article, we’ve used the whole Region as our playing field.

Which raises a trickier question. Do you have to be born here to earn the title of “Brussels celebrity”? Brussels has always been a crossroads of merchants, exiles, and artists looking for a refuge. Bruegel, Magritte, and Horta were born elsewhere, but this is where they lived, worked, and left their mark. Leaving them off the list would be a bit petty, so we gave them a chapter all their own.

Brusselers even have a word for this mix, “zinneke.” The term originally meant a mixed-breed dog and has become a point of local pride. You’ll find plenty more in our article on Brussels expressions to know before visiting the city.

Brussels natives who made history

Long before cinema and radio, Brussels was already producing figures known across Europe. Some of them have been somewhat forgotten by the general public, and unfairly so.

Andreas Vesalius, the doctor who opened up the human body

Andreas Wytinck van Wesel, as he was born, came into the world in Brussels on the night of December 31, 1514, into a family that had been practicing medicine for generations. His father was an apothecary (the forerunner of today’s pharmacist), and the family home faced the city gallows (yes, where the condemned were hanged 😬). Enough to spark an early and rather unusual curiosity about anatomy.

At the time, medicine simply repeated the teachings of Galen, a Greek physician of the 2nd century whose theories had been the authority for more than a thousand years. The problem was that Galen had mostly dissected animals. Vesalius opened up real human bodies, compared, corrected, and in 1543 published an illustrated work that would change everything, De humani corporis fabrica (On the Fabric of the Human Body).

The book scandalized the old guard, but it founded modern anatomy. Vesalius became personal physician to Emperor Charles V, then to Philip II of Spain, before dying in 1564 on the Greek island of Zakynthos, on his way back from a trip to Jerusalem. His statue now stands on Place des Barricades, not far from the Congress Column in Brussels.

Marguerite Yourcenar, the first woman in the Académie française

Marguerite Yourcenar was a French novelist and essayist who became an American citizen in 1947, but few readers know that the author of Memoirs of Hadrian was born on Avenue Louise, on June 8, 1903. Her father was French and her mother Belgian, and her mother died a few days after giving birth. Young Marguerite de Crayencour left Belgium early, but she never forgot her roots, which she later described in Dear Departed.

Her pen name hides a little wordplay, since Yourcenar is an almost perfect anagram of Crayencour. On March 6, 1980, she became the first woman elected to the Académie française, the guardian of the French language, an institution that had admitted only men since 1635. Legend has it that the Academy’s restrooms then displayed two doors, “Messieurs” (Gentlemen) and “Marguerite Yourcenar.”

Kings born in Brussels

Every King of the Belgians was born in Brussels, with one exception. Leopold I, the first of them, was born in 1790 in Coburg, Germany, and took the oath on Place Royale on July 21, 1831, a date that has since become Belgian National Day. His son Leopold II was born in Brussels in 1835, as was Albert I in 1875, in the palace on Rue de la Régence that now houses the Belgian Court of Audit, followed by Leopold III in 1901.

The last three kings were all born in Laeken, on the royal estate. Baudouin, in 1930, and his brother Albert II, in 1934, were born at Stuyvenberg Castle. Philippe was born in 1960 at Belvédère Castle, where his parents had settled after their wedding. The Castle of Laeken remains the king’s official residence, while the Royal Palace, facing Brussels Park, serves as his workplace. The palace usually opens its doors to the public in summer, and the Royal Greenhouses of Laeken do the same for a few weeks in spring.

Brussels stars of the 20th century

The 20th century turned Brussels into a small talent factory. Chanson, film, comics, or jazz, the city produced names known on every continent, many of whom left to build careers elsewhere but never fully cut their roots.

Jacques Brel, from Schaerbeek to “Greatest Belgian”

Jacques Brel was born on April 8, 1929, in Schaerbeek, into a family tied to a Brussels cardboard factory. The young man worked there for a few years, was bored stiff, and took to the stage of Brussels cabarets in the early 1950s. In 1953, he left for Paris with a suitcase and a guitar.

You know the rest. Ne me quitte pas (the original of If You Go Away), Amsterdam, Le Plat Pays, and a song named after his city, Bruxelles, released in 1962. Brel loved to poke fun at the bourgeoisie and the clergy, but he never turned his back on his country. He died in 1978, at just 49.

In 2005, French-speaking viewers voted him “Greatest Belgian” in the RTBF poll, ahead of King Baudouin and Father Damien. On the Flemish side, in a vote held the same year by the public broadcaster VRT, he only came in seventh. Today, the Fondation Jacques Brel, on Place de la Vieille Halle aux Blés, tells his story, and a statue by Tom Frantzen shows him in full flight just a few steps away.

Audrey Hepburn, Hollywood’s Brussels girl

Less than a month after Brel, on May 4, 1929, a baby girl was born at 48 Rue Keyenveld, in Ixelles. Her name was Audrey Kathleen Ruston. Her mother came from the Dutch aristocracy, her father was British, and it was through him that she got her nationality.

The family moved from Ixelles to Linkebeek, then the girl was sent to school in England. The rest of the story played out far from here, with the Best Actress Oscar for Roman Holiday, the little black dress of Breakfast at Tiffany’s, and her work for UNICEF later in life. She is one of the few artists ever to have won an Oscar, an Emmy, a Grammy, and a Tony.

Brussels took its time to honor her. A small garden bearing her name was inaugurated on May 4, 2022, at the end of Rue Keyenveld, with a bronze bust by Dutch artist Kees Verkade. Across from the house where she was born, a mural bears a title movie buffs will love, “Breakfast at Ixelles,” a wink at her most famous film.

Hergé and Peyo, the fathers of Belgian comics

Georges Remi was born on May 22, 1907, in Etterbeek. He reversed his initials, G. R., which pronounced in French give “Hergé,” and in January 1929 he published the first adventures of a young reporter with a quiff in Le Petit Vingtième, a youth supplement printed in Brussels. Tintin has since been translated into dozens of languages.

Some twenty years younger, Pierre Culliford was born on June 25, 1928, in Schaerbeek, to an English father and a Belgian mother. A little cousin who couldn’t say “Pierrot” gave him his nickname, Peyo. On October 23, 1958, in an adventure of Johan and Peewit, some little blue creatures made their first appearance. Their name was reportedly born at the dinner table, when Peyo asked his friend Franquin to pass him the “schtroumpf” instead of the salt, a made-up word that became “Smurf” in English.

Between them, these two made Brussels a capital of comics. More than 80 comic book murals now brighten the walls of the Brussels region, and the Comic Art Museum (long known as the Belgian Comic Strip Center) occupies a former department store designed by Victor Horta, who we’ll come back to later.

Jean-Claude Van Damme, from Brussels ketje to Hollywood star

Jean-Claude Van Varenberg was born on October 18, 1960, in Berchem-Sainte-Agathe, to a Flemish mother and a father from Brussels, an accountant and florist. A rather scrawny kid, he took up karate on his father’s advice, then discovered bodybuilding and ballet. His training paid off, earning him a black belt and the Mr. Belgium bodybuilding title.

In the early 1980s, he moved to the United States hoping to become an actor. He worked odd jobs and knocked on studio doors for several years. His breakthrough came in 1988 with Bloodsport. Kickboxer, Universal Soldier, and Timecop then made him one of the biggest action stars of the 1990s.

His career had its ups and downs, but he surprised everyone in 2008 with JCVD, a film in which he plays a version of himself, warts and all. In 2013, his split between two reversing trucks, filmed for a commercial, went viral around the world. His off-the-cuff interview quotes have become classics of Belgian humor, and people in Brussels have a genuine soft spot for him.

Since October 21, 2012, a life-size bronze statue has shown him in a fighting stance in Anderlecht, across from the Westland Shopping Center. The mall’s shopkeepers commissioned it after asking their customers which Belgian personality they would most like to see cast in bronze. At the unveiling, the actor called it “the dream of a ketje from Brussels” (ketje being local slang for a street kid).

Toots Thielemans, from the Marolles to the great jazz stages

Jean-Baptiste Thielemans was born on April 29, 1922, in the working-class Marolles neighborhood. His parents ran a café on Rue Haute, where an accordion player came to play regularly. The little boy listened, imitated him, and was playing a makeshift accordion by age 3. He later enrolled in mathematics at the ULB, the Free University of Brussels, but music ended up having the last word.

He discovered the harmonica as a teenager. During the war, jazz entered his life, and he took Django Reinhardt as his model on guitar. His nickname came from two American musicians he admired, Toots Mondello and Toots Camarata. Back then, the harmonica was seen as a toy, and some musicians even advised him to drop it for a real instrument.

Everything changed in 1950, when he toured Europe with Benny Goodman. He then settled in the United States and played with Charlie Parker, Ella Fitzgerald, and Bill Evans. In 1962, he wrote Bluesette, which he played on guitar while whistling the melody. The tune became a jazz standard, and you can also hear his harmonica on the soundtracks of Midnight Cowboy and Jean de Florette.

Made a baron by King Albert II in 2001, Toots never forgot where he came from and loved to talk about his beginnings in the family bar. He passed away on August 22, 2016, at 94. For the centenary of his birth in 2022, Brussels and the whole of Belgium dedicated a year of tributes to him.

More celebrities born in Brussels

The list could go on and on. Here are a few names that often surprise visitors, and sometimes even Belgians themselves:

• Annie Cordy: born Léonie Cooreman in Laeken on June 16, 1928, she was the queen of good cheer in French-language song, with hits like Tata Yoyo and La bonne du curé. King Albert II made her a baroness in 2004.
• Jaco Van Dormael: born in Ixelles on February 9, 1957, he won the Caméra d’Or at Cannes in 1991 with Toto the Hero, his first feature film. The Eighth Day, Mr. Nobody, and The Brand New Testament followed.
• Julio Cortázar: one of Argentina’s great writers was born in Ixelles in 1914, where his father worked for the embassy. He only spent his very first years there.
• Sœur Sourire: known in the United States as the Singing Nun, Jeanine Deckers, a pastry chef’s daughter, was born in Laeken on October 17, 1933. After joining the Dominican order, she recorded Dominique, which climbed to number one on the US charts in 1963, ahead of Elvis Presley and the Beach Boys.
• Jean-Michel Folon: born in Uccle on March 1, 1934, he was the illustrator of little men in hats and watercolor skies. From the mid-1970s to the early 1980s, his flying figures opened and closed the broadcast day on the French TV channel Antenne 2 (now France 2).
• Raymond Goethals: born in Forest on October 7, 1921, “Raymond la Science” led Olympique de Marseille to victory in the Champions League in 1993, at age 71. He was the first coach to win the trophy with a French club, long before Luis Enrique’s PSG did it in 2025 and 2026.
• Diane von Furstenberg: born in Brussels on December 31, 1946, the same day as Vesalius, she popularized the wrap dress in the 1970s.
• Jacky Ickx: born in Brussels on January 1, 1945, the racing driver won the 24 Hours of Le Mans six times.

Brussels celebrities today

The Belgian celebrities best known abroad today often grew up somewhere between Laeken, Uccle, and Etterbeek.

The best known of these artists is Paul Van Haver. Born in Etterbeek on March 12, 1985, to a Flemish mother and a Rwandan architect father, he grew up in Laeken. As Stromae, he released Alors on danse in 2009, a track that got all of Europe dancing the following year. He then reached a much wider audience with Papaoutai and Formidable. His songs deal with an absent father, illness, and loneliness, set to beats that still make you want to move.

Uccle gave birth to another family of musicians. Roméo Elvis was born there in 1992, and his little sister Angèle on December 3, 1995. Their parents are singer Marka and actress and comedian Laurence Bibot, which probably explains some of their ease on stage. Released in 2018, their duet Tout oublier broke Stromae’s record for the most weeks at number one on the Ultratop, the French-speaking Belgian chart, in early 2019, and Angèle, with her album Brol, became one of the most listened-to voices in French-language pop.

The case of Amélie Nothomb is more mysterious. The novelist has always claimed she was born on August 13, 1967, in Kobe, Japan, where her father was a diplomat. According to Belgian records, however, she was actually born on July 9, 1966, in Etterbeek. She has never really settled the matter, and this double birth suits her perfectly, along with her big hats and her thirty-odd novels.

Other Brussels natives are in the spotlight today, often on both sides of the French border:

• Virginie Efira: born in Schaerbeek on May 5, 1977, the former TV host has become one of the most sought-after actresses in French cinema. She won the César for Best Actress in 2023 for Paris Memories.
• Lara Fabian: born in Etterbeek in 1970, she won over Quebec and then France with Je t’aime and her powerful voice.
• Vincent Kompany: born in Uccle in 1986 and trained at Anderlecht, he captained Manchester City and the Belgian national team, the Red Devils, before becoming a coach.
• Philippe Geluck: born in Brussels on May 7, 1954, he created Le Chat (The Cat) in 1983 for the daily newspaper Le Soir. The big suit-wearing tomcat is one of the country’s most popular comic book heroes.

Born elsewhere, adopted by Brussels

Some of the famous Belgian artists most closely associated with Brussels weren’t born here. They arrived young or as adults, and the city ended up treating them as its own.

Pieter Bruegel the Elder, painter of the Marolles

Nobody knows exactly where or when Bruegel was born. It was probably around 1525, perhaps near Breda. He trained in Antwerp, traveled to Italy, then settled in Brussels around 1562. The reason was not exactly artistic, since his future mother-in-law wanted to keep him away from Antwerp and a few awkward love affairs.

In 1563, he married Mayken Coecke in the Church of Our Lady of the Chapel, on the edge of the Marolles. He was buried there six years later, in 1569, and a memorial still honors him. The gabled house at 132 Rue Haute proudly bears the name “Bruegel House,” even though there is no proof he ever actually lived there.

His dancing peasants, his hunters in the snow, and his proverbs in pictures made him the great painter of everyday life. Several of his masterpieces can be seen at the Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium, a few minutes from the Grand-Place.

René Magritte, the surrealist from Jette

René Magritte was born in Lessines, in the province of Hainaut, on November 21, 1898. He arrived in Brussels at 17 to study at the Academy of Fine Arts and barely left the city until his death in 1967. In half a century, he lived at no fewer than seven different addresses there.

The most important one is at 135 Rue Esseghem, in Jette. The painter and his wife Georgette rented the ground floor there from 1930 to 1954. Magritte painted in the dining room, wearing a suit, and produced nearly half of his body of work there. Every week, the Brussels surrealists gathered there to put the world to rights.

Today he ranks among the most famous Belgian painters, and his green apples, bowler hats, and pipe that “is not a pipe” travel the world on posters and mugs. Brusselers, for their part, like to point out that he enjoyed a drink at La Fleur en Papier Doré, an old estaminet (a traditional Brussels pub) in the city center, where the walls still bear traces of his friends.

Victor Horta, the architect who drew Art Nouveau

Victor Horta was born in Ghent on January 6, 1861, but it was in Brussels that he revolutionized architecture. In 1893, his Hôtel Tassel invented a whole new style, with whiplash curves, exposed iron, and light pouring down from above.

Between 1898 and 1901, he built his own house and studio on Rue Américaine, in Saint-Gilles. The building is now the Horta Museum, and since 2000 it has been a UNESCO World Heritage Site along with three of his other town houses, the Hôtel Tassel, the Hôtel Solvay, and the Hôtel van Eetvelde.

Not everything survived. His Maison du Peuple (House of the People), a masterpiece of glass and steel, was demolished in 1965, a loss many Brusselers still regret. His former Waucquez department store, on the other hand, was saved and now houses the Comic Art Museum, bringing Horta, Hergé, and Peyo together under one roof.

They left their mark on the Grand-Place, right next door

The Grand-Place, Brussels’ UNESCO-listed main square, hasn’t just seen merchants and tourists come and go. Some of the greatest names in history have passed through too, and their traces are right outside our windows.

In December 1851, after Louis-Napoléon Bonaparte’s coup, Victor Hugo fled France and found refuge in Brussels. In 1852, he stayed at the Maison du Pigeon (House of the Pigeon), at numbers 26 and 27, as a plaque on the facade reminds passersby. This is where he wrote Napoleon the Little, a scathing pamphlet against the future emperor. Ten years later, it was again a Brussels publisher that released Les Misérables. He is also credited with a phrase we never tire of repeating, calling the Grand-Place “the most beautiful square in the world.”

A few years earlier, another exile was a regular on the square. Expelled from Paris, Karl Marx lived in Brussels from February 1845 to March 1848. He liked to spend time at the Maison du Cygne (House of the Swan), at number 9, where he met with Friedrich Engels (a German philosopher) and members of the Communist League. It was during this Brussels stay that the two men wrote The Communist Manifesto. Le Cygne kept its political calling, as the Belgian Workers’ Party was founded there in 1885.

The square has also seen darker days. On June 5, 1568, the Counts of Egmont and Hornes, two noblemen who opposed the policies of Philip II of Spain, were beheaded there in front of the crowd. Their statue now watches over the Petit Sablon garden.

And then there’s the story most worthy of a novel. On July 10, 1873, after a morning spent in the estaminets around the Grand-Place, Paul Verlaine fired two revolver shots at Arthur Rimbaud. It happened in a hotel on Rue des Brasseurs, about a hundred meters (330 feet) from here. Rimbaud was wounded in the wrist, and Verlaine got two years in prison. He served most of his sentence in the prison of Mons, and it was in his cell there that he returned to the Catholic faith and wrote several of the poems that would later form his collection Sagesse.

Every facade on the square has its own stories, which we tell in our article on the houses of the Grand-Place and who is behind each facade. Ours, the former Bakers’ Guild house, is no exception, and you can discover the history of Le Roy d’Espagne since the 12th century.

Where to find famous Brusselers around town

No need for a grand expedition to follow in the footsteps of these Brusselers, born or adopted. The first five addresses below are within walking distance of the Grand-Place, while the last three call for a short tram or metro ride. Here are the ones we recommend to our guests:

• The Grand-Place plaques: those of Victor Hugo (Maison du Pigeon, numbers 26 and 27) and Karl Marx (Maison du Cygne, number 9) are fairly discreet. Keep your eyes peeled and look carefully at each facade, and you’ll end up spotting them.
• The Fondation Jacques Brel: on Place de la Vieille Halle aux Blés, a five-minute walk from the Grand-Place, with his statue right across the way.
• The Comic Art Museum: on Rue des Sables, for Tintin, the Smurfs, and Horta’s building. Round off your visit with the Comic Book Route and its open-air murals.
• The Magritte Museum: on Place Royale, it holds the world’s largest collection of the painter’s works.
• The Church of Our Lady of the Chapel: home to Bruegel’s grave, at the gateway to the Marolles. While you’re there, stroll down Rue Haute to the flea market on Place du Jeu de Balle.
• The Audrey Hepburn Garden: at the end of Rue Keyenveld, in Ixelles, a stone’s throw from Avenue Louise.
• The Horta Museum: on Rue Américaine, in Saint-Gilles. Visitor numbers are limited, so booking ahead is a good idea.
• The René Magritte Museum: at 137 Rue Esseghem, in Jette, it gives access to the apartment at number 135 where the painter lived. It’s a more intimate visit, perfect for true fans.

Conclusion

So much for the joke about five famous Belgians. Brussels alone has enough to fill an entire book, with a father of modern medicine, the first woman in the Académie française, a Hollywood icon, the singer French speakers voted Greatest Belgian, the creators of Tintin and the Smurfs, and a whole generation of artists now packing concert halls.

What’s also striking is how modest the city is about it all. Brussels doesn’t put up big signs pointing to Audrey Hepburn’s birthplace or Bruegel’s grave. You have to look up, push open a door, and know where to look. Maybe that’s what makes the hunt so enjoyable.

So next time you cross the Grand-Place, think of Hugo at his window, Marx at his table in Le Cygne, and Verlaine staggering toward Rue des Brasseurs. And come tell us over a drink which famous Brusseler surprised you the most.

FAQ

Why is Jean-Claude Van Damme nicknamed “The Muscles from Brussels”?

The American press made the nickname popular when he became an action movie star. It plays on the rhyme between “muscles” and “Brussels,” highlighting both his physique and his Brussels roots. The actor reportedly isn’t a big fan, but the nickname has stuck with him for more than thirty years.

Is Tintin from Brussels?

Nothing says so officially, but everything points to it. His adventures were born in Brussels in 1929, in a Brussels newspaper, from the pen of a Brussels cartoonist. His address, 26 Labrador Road, is fictional, but the settings of several albums are inspired by the city, starting with the flea market in The Secret of the Unicorn, which looks a lot like the one on Place du Jeu de Balle.

Who are the most famous Belgian painters?

If you include the old masters born before 1830, when Belgium did not yet exist, the names that usually come up are Jan van Eyck, Pieter Bruegel the Elder, and Peter Paul Rubens. For the 19th and 20th centuries, James Ensor, René Magritte, and Paul Delvaux top the list. In Brussels, you can admire many of their works at the Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium.

What is a “zinneke” in Brussels?

Originally, the word referred to the stray dogs that roamed the banks of the Senne, the river of Brussels, which has since been covered over. Over time, it came to describe Brusselers themselves, the product of a cheerful mix of origins. A small statue of a dog lifting its leg, Zinneke Pis, pays tribute to them on the corner of Rue des Chartreux.

Is Eddy Merckx from Brussels?

Not by birth, since the greatest cyclist in history was born in 1945 in Meensel-Kiezegem, in Flemish Brabant. But his family soon moved to Woluwe-Saint-Pierre, where his parents ran a grocery store, and it was on the streets of Brussels that he first learned to ride. The municipality even pays tribute to him with Place du Cannibale, named after the nickname his hunger for victories earned him.

Photo credits: © Pierre Fera