Ken Jeong

At 54 years old, Ken Jeong has this physical status:

Kendrick Kang-Joh Jeong (born July 13, 1969) is a Korean-American stand-up comedian, actor, voice artist, and former physician.

He is best known for playing Ben Chang on the sitcom Community and the drug lord Leslie Chow in The Hangover film series.

He was the lead in the ABC sitcom Dr.

Ken, of which he is also the creator and for which he was a writer and executive producer.

Jeong is a licensed physician but has stopped practicing in favor of his acting career.

He currently appears as a panelist on the singing competition show The Masked Singer.

Early life and education

Jeong was born in Detroit, Michigan, to South Korean immigrant parents, D.K. and Young Jeong. His father D.K. received his Ph.D. in economics from Wayne State University. Jeong was raised in Greensboro, North Carolina. D.K. Jeong was a professor of economics at North Carolina A&T State University.

Jeong attended Walter Hines Page High School, where he participated in the regional quiz bowl, was elected to the student council, and played violin in the school orchestra. He graduated in 1986 at the age of 16, and later went on to receive Greensboro's Youth of the Year award for his achievements.

Jeong began pursuing acting while a sophomore at Duke University. He briefly considered majoring in drama while still continuing his pre-med coursework. He graduated from Duke in 1990 and obtained his M.D. at the UNC School of Medicine in 1995. The summer before medical school, he took theater classes at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA).

Personal life

Jeong's wife, Tran Ho, is Vietnamese American, a family physician, and a breast cancer survivor. They have twin daughters named Zooey and Alexa (born 2007). Jeong and his family reside in Calabasas, California.

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Career

Jeong's career in theater and improv started in North Carolina when he was still a medical student. He appeared at Charlie Goodnights in Raleigh and Tootie's Durham Comedy Club as a regular at open mic nights in the Raleigh-Durham circuit. He also emceed The Comedy Spot programming series on Duke University's campus in 1992 and 1993 (produced by his colleague Kendrick Jahng) opened for Margaret Cho, Jeff Dunham, and others.

Jeong completed his internal medicine residency at the Ochsner Medical Center in New Orleans. In 1995, Jeong won the Big Easy Laff-Off while still in residence. Judge Brandon Tartikoff and The Improv founder Budd Friedman were both judges, and they advised Jeong to Los Angeles.

Jeong began practicing medicine in Los Angeles in 1998 and spent many years as a consultant of internal medicine at a Kaiser Permanente hospital in Woodland Hills. He began appearing at The Improv and Laugh Factory comedy clubs on a daily basis. Curb Your Enthusiasm's stand-up comedy culminated in numerous television appearances, including NBC's The Office, FOX's MADtv, HBO's Entourage, and Curb Your Enthusiasm.

Jeong earned a spot on Comedy Central's Comic Groove in 2002. Jeong appeared on Kims of Comedy before.

Dr. Kuni, his debut in Judd Apatow's Knocked Up, was his first film role, and it was his best-in-the-Field appearance. He went from medicine to a full-time job in the entertainment industry from that point forward. Jeong left theatre in 2006 in favour of his acting career; however, he has maintained his medical license and has helped with medical emergencies during performances and on-set.

Earlier in Jeong's career, he studied with director Natalia Lazarus at the Los Angeles Performing Arts Conservatory, where she coached him for his first film appearance in Knocked Up. Throughout The Hangover Part II, Lazarus coached Jeong from 2006 to 2012 for all of his film and television appearances.

He has appeared in Step Brothers; Pineapple Express; Role Models as King Argotron; and as Mr. Chow in The Hangover, Part II and Part III. He co-starred in Zookeeper and Transformers: Dark of the Moon, which was released in summer 2011.

At the 2010 Teen Choice Awards, Jeong appeared on Sesor Chang on the NBC sitcom Community and was selected for the show's "Male Breakout Star" position. He was nominated for two MTV Movie Awards in 2010, including Best WTF Moment and Best Villain for The Hangover. Adidas basketball's fall 2010 marketing campaign, in which he appeared as "Slim Chin," alongside NBA stars Dwight Howard and Derrick Rose, began. He hosted the 2011 Billboard Music Awards in Las Vegas on ABC on May 22, 2011, and was featured in the American Heart Association's Hands Only CPR PSA campaign on June 15, 2011.

Jamie Foxx and Jeong have both agreed to act in films written and produced by the other in 2012. After Prom, Foxx has agreed to appear in After Prom, Jeong's best buddy comedy. In turn, Jeong will appear in Foxx's sports comedy All-Star Weekend. In addition, he appeared in the animated comedy film Bob's Burgers, as Dr. Yap.

Jeong received the Streamy Award for his "Best Guest Appearance" for Burning Love.

Johnny Wu, a motivational speaker, appeared in Pain & Gain (2013) in Michael Bay. In The Hangover Part III, Mr. Chow appeared in a much expanded capacity later this year. In the animated film Turbo (2013), Kim Ly appeared as Kim Ly. In 2015, Jeong starred, wrote, and produced the pilot of his new ABC medical comedy Dr. Ken as a failed HMO doctor juggling his work, marriage, and parenting, but was not successful at any of them. Jeong, Suzy Nakamura, Dave Foley, Tisha Campbell-Martin, and Jonathan Slavin were among the series's first appearances on May 7, 2015. On October 2, 2015, the series premiered.

In August 2018, Fox cast Jeong as a celebrity panelist on its forthcoming music competition series The Masked Singer, based on the South Korean show King of Mask Singer. In addition, Jeong appeared on the first series of the British adaptation of the show as a panelist. Jeong appeared on King of Mask Singer "Chep" by Radiohead in January 2019.

You Complete Me, Ho, Jeong's first comedy special, was released on Netflix in 2019. The Epilepsy Foundation released a statement relating to a parody in the presentation that used an incorrectly referred to seizure first aid methods.

Jeong received the Visionary Award from East West Players, the oldest Asian Pacific American theatre company in the United States, for contributing to "the greater presence of the Asian Pacific American (APA) community through [his] craft."

Fox selected Jeong as the host and co-executive producer of its forthcoming music game show I Can See Your Voice, which is also based on a South Korean format.

As a result of the COVID-pandemic's social alienation, Jeong and Joel McHale created The Darkest Timeline with Ken Jeong & Joel McHale. They were the new hosts of Fox's New Year's Eve special Eve Toast & Roast 2021. Due to the fact that the Omicron version of the COVID-19 pandemic was quickly expanding. In the Scooby-Doo animated film Scoob!, he also voiced Dynomutt.

Jeong appeared as a guest judge on Crime Scene Kitchen in July 2021. Jeong appeared in Sprout Cloverleaf in the Netflix animated film My Little Pony: A New Generation, 2021.

Since Rudy Giuliani was announced as the new artist on the program in April 2022, Jeong walked away from the show The Masked Singer. Before walking off the show, Jeong was seen saying, "I'm done."

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