Rueda出生于马德里。她的父亲是一名土木工程师，母亲是一名芭蕾舞教练。她是三个孩子中的第二个;她的兄弟姐妹名叫楚斯和维奥莱塔（罗达尔女士）。她和家人在她还是个孩子的时候就搬到了阿利坎特的圣胡安，因为她妹妹的哮喘问题。她与丹尼尔·埃西亚结婚，并育有三个孩子，贝利亚（生于 1994 年）、玛丽亚（生于 1996 年）和露西亚（生于 1998 年）;不幸的是，他们的第二个孩子在婴儿时期死于心脏病。她现在是离婚者。鲁埃达18岁时，她搬到马德里学习建筑，但当她遇到一个意大利男人时，她离开了大学，后来她嫁给了他。鲁埃达回到马德里，做过销售员和模特，直到她最终成为一名电视节目主持人。之后，她在电视上担任女演员，包括节目 Los Serrano，并最终出演了电影。2004 年，她因在 Mar Adentro （The Sea Inside） 中饰演 Julia 而获得戈雅奖。她因在 2007 年的电影《孤儿院》中的角色而获得另一项戈雅提名。鲁埃达在吉列尔莫·德尔·托罗（Guillermo Del Toro）制作的西班牙惊悚片《Los ojos de Julia》中担任主角。

​Rueda 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 (Ms. Rodal). She and her family moved to San Juan, Alicante when she was a child because of her younger sister's asthmatic problems. She was married to Daniel Écija and had three children with him, Beliá (b.1994), María (b.1996) and Lucía (b.1998); 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. Rueda returned to Madrid and worked as a salesperson and a model until she finally became a TV presenter. After that she worked as an actress on television, including the show Los Serrano, and eventually acted in films. She won a Goya Award in 2004 for her role as Julia in Mar Adentro (The Sea Inside). She received another Goya nomination for her role in the 2007 film, The Orphanage. Rueda played the lead role of the Spanish thriller Los ojos de Julia, which is produced by Guillermo Del Toro.

María Belén Rueda García-Porrero (Madrid, 16 de marzo de 1965) es una actriz y presentadora de televisión española con una extensa carrera televisiva en series y programas durante más de treinta años, además de una dilatada experiencia en cine que comenzó con Mar adentro (2004), por la que ganó el premio como mejor actriz revelación en la XIX edición de los Premios Goya, y más adelante prosiguió con El orfanato (2007), Los ojos de Julia (2010) o Perfectos desconocidos (2017).