Carrie Ann Inaba

Carrie Ann Inaba (born January 5, 1968) is an American television personality, dancer, choreographer, actress, and singer.

Inaba was born and raised in Honolulu, Hawaii, graduating from Punahou School in 1986.

She is of Irish, Japanese, and Chinese descent.

Her first dance instruction was at three years old in a "creative movement" class, where children danced on their own with scarves.

As a child, she would dance in her backyard that overlooked the Pacific Ocean.

She attended Sophia University and University of California, Irvine before graduating from the University of California, Los Angeles with a B.A. degree in world arts and cultures.

In 1986, an 18-year-old Inaba won a talent show in Hawaii.

She was then groomed to be a pop star in Japan and given songs to read phonetically in Japanese from a lyric sheet.

Even though her first single made the Top 50, she "realized it has nothing to do with how artistic you are. Your face becomes a logo they sell."

Inaba lived in Tokyo from 1986 to 1988 and was a popular singer.

She released three singles, "Party Girl" (backed with "China Blue"), "Be Your Girl" (backed with "6½ Capezio"), and "Yume no Senaka" (backed with "Searching") and hosted weekly radio and television series.

She started her career as a singer in Japan, but became best known for her dancing, introducing herself to American audiences as one of the original Fly Girls on the Fox sketch comedy series In Living Color from 1990 to 1992.

After returning to America, Inaba appeared as one of the "Fly Girls"—a group of dancers on the television series In Living Color—from 1990 to 1992.

She also performed with Canadian singer Norman Iceberg and dancers Viktor Manoel (David Bowie's "Glass Spider" tour) and Luca Tommassini at Prince's notorious Glam Slam.

Inaba appeared as a featured solo dancer during Madonna's 1993 Girlie Show World Tour, on the condition she shave her hair.

After hesitating, she decided it was worth it.

Her favorite dance is rumba since, according to American Fitness, she feels it is "very strong and demanding".

Inaba appeared as one of the background dancers in the film adaptation of Monster Mash in 1995.

She appeared in the film Austin Powers in Goldmember (2002) as Fook Yu, alongside Diane Mizota, who played her twin sister Fook Mi. The two women are not related, but when Mizota had been cast for her role, she was asked if she knew any actresses who resembled her and suggested Inaba.

Inaba, who had appeared briefly in Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me, was given the role and the two women were made up to appear as identical twins.

She is best known for her work on ABC TV's Dancing with the Stars for which she has served as a judge since 2005.

Inaba and Mizota reprised their roles with Mike Myers in a commercial for Motorola in 2005.

In later years, Inaba would later regret playing Fook Yu because of the negative stereotypes portrayed.

Inaba has acted (usually as a dancer) in the movies Monster Mash: The Movie, Lord of Illusions, Showgirls, Boys and Girls, Flintstones II, Freak and American Virgin and the television series Jack & Jill and Nikki.

Inaba has appeared on The View, the ABC talent competition Dance War: Bruno vs. Carrie Ann, and the Fox special Breaking the Magician's Code: Magic's Biggest Secrets Finally Revealed.

She, along with Bruno Tonioli, has appeared in every season on Dancing with the Stars.

Inaba guest starred as Tina, Hannah's choreographer, in the Hannah Montana episode, "Papa's Got a Brand New Friend".

TV Guide Network announced that it had signed Inaba to anchor its live red carpet coverage, beginning with the 2009 Primetime Emmy Awards.

Inaba served as an honorary judge at the 2009 USA Dance National Dance Sport Championships.

Inaba is the founder and President of EnterMediArts, Inc., a video production company.

In October 2010, Inaba was named host of the revival of the game show 1 vs. 100 on GSN.

After the first season, Inaba announced she would not return to host the show.

Inaba had been a recurring guest co-host for the CBS Daytime talk show, The Talk, for the last two seasons.

She co-hosted and moderated the CBS Daytime talk show, The Talk from 2019 to 2021.

She officially replaced original host Julie Chen as the fifth co-host and moderator permanently, officially debuting on January 2, 2019.

On April 26, 2021, Inaba announced she would take a leave of absence from the show.

On August 20, 2021, it was confirmed that Inaba would not be returning to the show for the upcoming season.

Inaba's choreography has appeared in several television series, including American Idol, American Juniors, All American Girl, He's a Lady, In Search of the Partridge Family (in which she also appeared on air), Married by America, The Sexiest Bachelor in America Pageant, The Swan, and Who Wants to Marry a Multi-Millionaire?.

She also choreographed the Miss America Pageant for five years.

She appeared in the first season of So You Think You Can Dance during the audition stages where she provided choreography for the "choreography round".