Jim Florentine

James Bernard Florentine (born August 18, 1964) is an American comedian, actor, author, and television personality.

He is best known for co-hosting That Metal Show on VH1 Classic and voicing several characters on Crank Yankers, including Special Ed and Bobby Fletcher.

He hosts The Jim Florentine Show on Sirius XM Satellite Radio and a podcast called Everybody Is Awful (Except You).

He has released six albums of stand-up comedy, two comedy specials, six installments in the Terrorizing Telemarketers prank call compilation, and three installments of the Meet the Creeps hidden camera show.

He was born on August 18, 1964, in Brooklyn (New York) to a large Catholic family.

He has six brothers and sisters and launched his career in New York City comedy clubs.

Florentine is a native of central New Jersey.

He came from a large Catholic family and was one of the seven children who attended the Catholic school St Ambrose.

He has stated in various interviews and in his stand-up act that he disliked his religious upbringing.

Florentine was interested in a musical career growing up because of his love for heavy metal music, but would often joke that he never had the talent to play an instrument.

His family lived for several years in Fort Lauderdale, Florida when his father decided he wanted to set up a family-run hot dog vending business.

The business, however, proved unsuccessful, and the family moved back to New Jersey.

In his late teens, Florentine had drug and alcohol problems and was in and out of rehab.

He has stated his love of hard rock music set him on a straight path in life.

Florentine became a DJ on WCNJ (now WCNM), his college radio station in Hazlet, New Jersey, in the 1980s.

Florentine was inspired to do standup comedy after seeing Andrew Dice Clay for the first time on a Rodney Dangerfield comedy special.

He and Jim Norton met Dice back stage at The Comedy Store in Los Angeles in the late 90s and the three hit it off, with Florentine and Norton later becoming his opening acts.

In July 2001, Florentine released Terrorizing Telemarketers Volume 1.

After numerous plays on the Howard Stern Radio Show, his CD ranking on Amazon.com went from 282,363 to number 2.

The only artist ahead of him was the Backstreet Boys.

Later that week, Florentine's CD came in at No. 17 on the Internet Billboard charts.

After the release of Terrorizing Telemarketers Volume 2 in late 2001, Jimmy Kimmel and Adam Carolla took a liking to Florentine's prank calls and hired him for a show to debut in June 2002 on Comedy Central called Crank Yankers.

Florentine played Special Ed, a developmentally disabled teenager, and Bobby Fletcher, a despicable, alcoholic slob who is the older cousin of Ed.

After season 1, Eminem took a liking to Florentine's characters and flew him out to his Detroit studio to do prank calls together for the upcoming season of Crank Yankers.

The following year in 2004, Eminem and Florentine did a bit together on the MTV Music Awards show where Eminem beat up Special Ed, who kept annoying him (and tore his leg off).

Crank Yankers lasted three seasons on Comedy Central.

Jade, his girlfriend of six years, committed suicide in December 2006 while he was away performing on stage.

The show moved over to MTV2 in 2006 for one season.

Florentine's Special Ed character that he created is still played at various sporting events at stadiums across the USA.

In August 2007, while a guest on The Howard Stern Show, Jim Florentine asked co-host Robin Quivers to go on a date with him during a show segment.

Due to the attention this garnered, Quivers became tight-lipped about the topic.

On July 28, 2008, Quivers announced on the radio show that she and Florentine had ended their relationship, the breakup was amicable, Florentine was "genuine and honest," and that he was the one who initiated the breakup.

Florentine was featured on the series premiere of Down and Dirty with Jim Norton, a comedy series that aired on HBO on October 3, 2008.

The series spotlights new and established talent, including Artie Lange, Bill Burr (Chappelle Show), Patrice O'Neal, and Andrew Dice Clay.

Lemmy, leader of the heavy metal band Motörhead, served as the musical director.

Later that year, That Metal Show made its debut on VH1 Classic.

Florentine co-hosted the show with fellow comedian Don Jamieson and rock radio broadcaster Eddie Trunk.

In 2010, he had a child with lacrosse coach Samantha Warner.

The two married in 2012 (her third, his first) and divorced in 2015 after he hired a private investigator who caught Warner having sex with a New Jersey police officer.

His 2018 book Everybody is Awful (Except You!) reached No. 1 on the Book Soup nonfiction chart.