Tom Leykis

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Thomas Joseph Leykis (pronounced: ; born August 1, 1956) is an American talk radio personality best known for hosting The Tom Leykis Show from 1994 to 2009 (nationally syndicated), and April 2012 to 2018 (internet streamcast/podcast).

The show follows the hot talk format, which brought Leykis much success, particularly in the Southern California radio market.

Due to the provocative nature of the show, Leykis has often been described as a shock jock.

The show's best-known feature is "Leykis 101", in which he purports to teach men how to get sex while spending the least amount of time, money, and effort.

Early life

Tom Leykis was born August 1, 1956, at a time when his parents, Harry and Laura (née O'Mara), lived in the Bronx. Leykis spent his early childhood in The Bronx, New York City, New York and has two sisters (Terry, Anne) and a brother (Jim). Leykis is of Irish and Jewish descent. His Jewish grandfather, who originated in Kyiv, Ukraine, emigrated to Lithuania and later to the United States at the turn of the 20th century. Tom Leykis has repeatedly stated that his lineage is irrelevant to his life and his accomplishments in the radio business. His father was a union leader at The New York Post. At a point in Leykis' childhood, he moved with his family to Selden, Long Island, where he completed high school and graduated at 16 from Newfield High School. He then moved away from the family home to study broadcasting at Fordham University and dropped out due to financial issues.

Personal life

Leykis has no children. He says that four women he impregnated all had abortions. He is an atheist, although reared as a Catholic. He has been married and divorced four times, which he unabashedly proclaims on-air regularly.

His second marriage was to television reporter Christina Gonzalez. Leykis alleges that he discovered that she was cheating on him after he investigated some hotel receipts he found. Another marriage, which lasted one year, was with a Seattle woman in 1989, who was a listener of his show.

His fourth wife, Susan Drew Leykis, who first met Leykis at a Los Angeles Kings game, filed a police report against him while they were married and living in Boston in 1993. On December 22 of that year, she alleged that Leykis assaulted and threatened to kill her during a fight after they returned home from a radio station Christmas party. He was subsequently charged with "felony assault and battery and threatening to commit a crime"; a police officer found bruises and scratches on the woman. In March 1994, Leykis was sentenced to a year of probation and ordered to attend a domestic violence class. He completed both, and the charges were dropped, although Leykis did not admit guilt as part of the agreement. The couple have since divorced.

In August 2004, Leykis was attacked outside a Seattle bar and all-night diner, The 5 Point Cafe. In the assault, he was kicked in the face and knocked down to the ground, causing him to require 17 stitches over one eye, and leaving him with scratches and bruises on his knees. The assailant reportedly had an accomplice who accused Leykis of calling him a name and hanging up on him when he called the show. The suspects left by taxi prior to police arriving on the scene and were jailed. Leykis refused to prosecute due to the distance and he felt that having a few days in jail was enough.

In late 2016, an obsessed fan was alleged to have called the show around 200 times a week and to have made threats against Leykis himself. A three-year restraining order was granted.

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Career

In 1970, Leykis began his radio career in the state of New York. He appeared as the host's sidekick in 1984 for WBAB's Mark Simone's WPIX-FM talk show comedy titled The Simone Phone, where he appeared as the host's sidekick when he was 14 years old. Leykis hosted "The Graffiti Hour," a call-in service on Long Island's Cablevision system in the mid-1970s. Leykis left WPIX in 1981 and moved to Albany to work at WQBK. In 1981, Leykis appeared on WABC's The Phonebooth. After his release from WABC, Leykis was given a full-time radio broadcasting job in Staunton, Virginia.

Leykis owes his decision to pursue a career in radio to an incident that occurred in the early 1980s, when his then-girlfriend ordered him out of their house because she felt he didn't have enough funds; he has since stated that this was one of his life's most significant events. Leykis appeared on an episode of 20/20 in an attempt to rekindle their friendship, but he turned down.

The Tom Leykis Show on WNWS in Miami was on Monday, February 27, 1984, to replace the WNWS night show hosted by talk radio personality Neil Rogers. Rogers, who had previously signed conflicting employment deals with both WNWS (790 AM) and WINZ (940 AM), just received permission from a Miami court to perform his act in WINZ and feared leaving WNWS would be devastating to Leykis' program. Rogers and Leykis became rivals in June 1984, just after Denver radio talk show host Alan Berg was assassinated, Leykis told listeners Neil Rogers' real name and encouraged callers to harass his on-air rival, Leykis. Leykis had the best-ranking evening talk show in the country by January 1985. Leykis abruptly resigned from his WNWS position in September 1985 after being concerned about the pending WNWS-WGBS merger and starting to work at Phoenix's KFYI.

Leykis, the program director of KFYI, assembled a politically balanced host lineup, introducing himself as a "left leaning libertarian" in the afternoons. Leykis was known for his ability of attracting new callers for the station by provoking rival station KTAR. Leykis abruptly left KFYI in 1987 due to internal communication that now has a shroud of secrecy regarding the station management, but the details remain vague. Moderators were forbidden from commenting about Leykis' departure from the station as late 1990s. While Leykis was still in Phoenix, a local Public-access television show called Backstage Pass was also on sale.

Leykis left Phoenix and went to Los Angeles to work with KFI, where he hosted a talk-radio program from 1988 to 1992 as a liberal counterpart to Rush Limbaugh. During this time, KFI was fined $6,000 by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) indecency for Leykis' on-air remarks; however, the fine was paid in full from contributions by listeners. During Leykis' tenure at KFI, Geoff Edwards was suspended and then resigned after an incident involving steamrolling a massive collection of Cat Stevens' work entiled by Leykis' denunciation of Salman Rushdie. The act, according to a local Nazi historian, was reminiscent of a Nazi book burning.

Based on Leykis' remarks, KFI's decision to pay Leykis his salary by an hour's notice, but KFI assumed the responsibility of paying him his estimated $400,000 per year for the remaining six months of his employment.

Leykis and the Boston and WRKO followed him. After a publicized domestic violence with then-wife Susan at the end of 1993, he left the Boston station for a new career in Los Angeles. Pretrial probation was granted in March 1994, and the charges arising from the assault were dropped in exchange for his participation in a program for batterers.

Leykis introduced The Tom Leykis Show on Westwood One in Culver City, California, in 1994. The show's last years were produced by Paramount Pictures Studios in Hollywood.

In July 2010, Leykis' established The New Normal Network, which featured streams like New Normal Music.

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