Jameela Jamil

Jameela Alia Jamil (born 25 February 1986) is a British actress, activist, podcaster, and television host and judge.

Jamil was born on 25 February 1986 in Hampstead, London, to a Pakistani father, Ali Jamil, and a British Pakistani mother, Shireen Jamil.

Jamil appeared on Music Zone on E4, the youth channel owned by Channel Four, toward the end of 2008.

She began her career on Channel 4, where she hosted a pop culture series in the T4 strand from 2009 until 2012.

She then became the radio host of The Official Chart, and co-hosted The Official Chart Update alongside Scott Mills on BBC Radio 1.

She was the first regular solo female presenter of the BBC Radio 1 chart show.

She then began presenting at Channel 4's youth slot T4 in 2009.

In January 2009, when the previous presenter, Alexa Chung, left the morning TV show Freshly Squeezed, Jamil succeeded her as co-host, alongside Nick Grimshaw.

In 2010, Jamil presented The Closet, an online fashion advice show on the social networking site Bebo produced by Twenty Twenty.

Jamil also started working as an event DJ in 2010.

She has said that her first show was at Elton John's birthday party, where she says she was invited to DJ because she lied about having prior experience.

In subsequent interviews and social media, she said she worked as a DJ for eight years, after studying music for six years on a music scholarship.

From 2011 to 2014 she wrote a column for the women's monthly magazine Company.

In January 2012, Jamil replaced June Sarpong as host of the reality show Playing It Straight, in which a group of gay men lie about their sexuality and compete with a group of straight men for a woman's affections to win money.

In June 2012, Jamil collaborated with Very to debut her first fashion collection.

At the end of 2012, she became the radio host of The Official Chart and co-host of The Official Chart Update alongside Scott Mills on BBC Radio 1.

Jamil made radio history, becoming the first sole female presenter of the BBC Radio 1 Chart show.

In a 2013 interview with The Independent, she said she worked as a model scout but never as a model; however, in 2020, she said she worked as a model but denied being one in early interviews, saying she hid this because she was not successful at modeling.

She also describes having worked as a photographer, scout and model agent for Premier Model Management.

Jamil said in an NPR interview that she was working as a teacher when she was discovered by a producer at a bar and asked to audition as a presenter.

She also said she applied to be a presenter by email after seeing a T4 (youth slot of British free-to-air Channel 4) job advertisement.

She said in 2015 that, as a child, she faced numerous health problems, being born with congenital hearing loss and labyrinthitis, which she has had several operations to correct, and that she had 70% hearing ability in her left ear and 50% in her right ear.

At nine, she was diagnosed with hypermobile Ehlers-Danlos syndrome, a genetic disorder affecting the connective tissue in the body, and at 12 with coeliac disease.

She experienced mercury poisoning at 21, which she attributes to mercury leakage from amalgam teeth fillings, exacerbated by their improper removal, which damaged her digestive system.

As a teenager she suffered from anorexia nervosa, and describes not eating a full meal between the ages of 14 and 17.

She believes her eating disorder developed due to societal pressure, including magazine articles selling weight loss products.

At age 17, she was struck by a car while running from a bee, breaking several bones and damaging her spine.

She describes being told that she might never walk again, but slowly recovering after steroid treatment and physiotherapy, using a Zimmer frame to start walking.

She credits the car accident for pushing her toward recovery from anorexia, saying it changed her relationship with her body.

She attended Queen's College School in London but was unable to complete her A-Levels, citing the accident.

She has said she then taught English to foreign students at the Callan School of English in London for two years.

In 2016, Jamil relocated to the United States.

She played Tahani Al-Jamil in the NBC fantasy comedy series The Good Place.

She also hosts the TBS late-night game show The Misery Index and is one of the judges of voguing reality competition show Legendary.

In 2022, Jamil worked on two superhero projects: the animated film DC League of Super-Pets and the live-action television series She-Hulk: Attorney at Law.

Jamil left London in 2016 and moved to Los Angeles.

She recounts having no plans to act, and that she instead intended to work as a screenwriter.

While working as a writer at 3 Arts, her agents told her that Michael Schur, who co-created Parks and Recreation, was looking for a British actress for an upcoming comedy series.

Having no acting experience at this point, she went for the audition and told the casting director that she had stage acting experience.

She was later recalled for a second interview with Schur and the producers, in which she claimed to have comedy improv experience.