Adam Carolla

Although broke, Carolla, his friends, and roommates owned a 1963 Cadillac limousine.

Adam Carolla (born May 27, 1964) is an American radio personality, comedian, actor and podcaster.

Adam Carolla was born on May 27, 1964, to Jim and Kris (née McCall) Carolla.

Some sources list his birthplace as Los Angeles County, California, while others list it as Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

He grew up in the Los Angeles San Fernando Valley, and his parents separated when he was young.

Carolla was not given a middle name by his parents; on his driver's license application he listed his middle name as "Lakers" as a joke.

The application was processed without notice.

His maternal step-grandfather was screenwriter László Görög.

Carolla was raised in the North Hollywood neighborhood of Los Angeles.

He attended Colfax Elementary School, Walter Reed Junior High, and North Hollywood High School.

Carolla did not receive his high school diploma until years later as it was held by the school until a library fine was paid.

In December 1981, he was named to the First Team Offensive Line, Central Valley League, one of 8 leagues at the time in the LA City Section of the California Interscholastic Federation.

In the early 1990s, Carolla studied improvisational comedy with The Groundlings and was a member of the ACME Comedy Theatre troupe.

In 1994, Carolla volunteered his services as a boxing trainer to prepare Jimmy Kimmel for a bout being staged by KROQ-FM's morning radio program Kevin and Bean.

Kimmel was a regular on the show as "Jimmy the Sports Guy" and he was set to fight another KROQ personality in a boxing exhibition which was being billed as the "Bleeda in Reseda".

Carolla parlayed this opportunity into a long-running friendship and business partnership with Kimmel as well as a recurring role on Kevin and Bean as cranky woodshop teacher, Mr. Birchum.

Carolla co-hosted the syndicated radio call-in program Loveline with Drew Pinsky from 1995 to 2005 as well as the show's television incarnation on MTV from 1996 to 2000.

In October 1995, after being signed to the William Morris Agency by Mark Itkin, Carolla was offered the job of co-hosting the evening radio call-in show Loveline. His co-hosts were the physician Drew Pinsky ("Dr. Drew") and metal DJ Riki Rachtman.

Carolla received the offer after Pinsky heard him on Kevin and Bean (Rachtman left the show the following year.) Loveline was broadcast on KROQ-FM in Los Angeles and was syndicated nationwide on the former Westwood One radio network.

While the format of the program was primarily that of a call-in show wherein listeners would ask questions about sex and relationships, Carolla would often spend much of the show ranting about various topics from fart jokes to extended parodies of radio morning shows, including mocking the format's penchant for useless and repetitive weather and traffic reports.

In contrast to the reserved, thoughtful Pinsky, Carolla served as the loud, funny side of the show.

Carolla's character was described by one reviewer as "a toned-down version of Howard Stern minus the huge ego".

He was the co-host and co-creator of the television program The Man Show (1999–2004), and the co-creator and a regular performer on the television show Crank Yankers (2002–2007, 2019–present).

In a late-2003 Loveline episode, Carolla said that Hawaiians are "dumb", "in-bred", "retarded" people who are among the "dumbest people we have".

The comments were met with anger in Hawaii and resulted in Loveline's cancellation on Hawaiian affiliate KPOI.

He hosted The Adam Carolla Project, a home improvement television program which aired on TLC in 2005 and The Car Show on Speed in 2011.

Carolla has also appeared on the network reality television programs Dancing with the Stars and The Celebrity Apprentice.

Carolla can be seen paying off the book and receiving his diploma in an episode of his 2005 television show, The Adam Carolla Project.

During his youth, Carolla played Pop Warner football for seven years; he later suggested that being involved in sports saved him from a chaotic home life.

During his senior year at North Hollywood High School, Carolla distinguished himself in football.

In October 2005, Carolla was announced as the host of a new morning radio show on the Infinity Broadcasting network.

His new show would replace the popular syndicated Howard Stern Show (which was moving to satellite radio) in twelve of the 27 markets in which Stern had been broadcast including Los Angeles, Las Vegas, San Francisco, San Diego, Phoenix, and Portland, Oregon.

The Adam Carolla Show debuted in January 2006.

His book In Fifty Years We'll All Be Chicks debuted on The New York Times Best Seller list in 2010, and his second book, Not Taco Bell Material, also reached The New York Times bestseller status.

Carolla has made numerous guest appearances on political talk shows as a commentator.

He hosted a weekly segment, "Rollin' with Carolla", on Bill O'Reilly's The O'Reilly Factor.

He hosts The Adam Carolla Show, a talk show distributed as a podcast which set the record as the "most downloaded podcast" as judged by Guinness World Records in 2011.

In October 2020 he spoke of being recruited by "7 or 8" schools including UC-Davis, Cal Poly Pomona, and Cal Poly San Luis Obispo.

He began living on his own at the age of 18.

He briefly attended Los Angeles Valley College, a community college, where he was placed on academic probation before dropping out to work in a series of jobs, including carpet cleaner, carpenter, boxing instructor, and traffic school instructor.