Russell Peters

Russell Dominic Peters (born September 29, 1970) is a Canadian stand-up comedian, actor, and producer.

Peters was born in Toronto, Ontario, Canada on September 29, 1970, to immigrants from India, both of Anglo-Indian descent, Eric and Maureen Peters, who had moved to Canada in 1965 from Jalandhar, Punjab, India and Kolkata, West Bengal, India respectively.

His extended family lives in Bhopal, Madhya Pradesh, India.

Peters was raised Catholic.

When Peters was four, he and his family moved to Brampton, Ontario, Canada.

He attended Chinguacousy Secondary School for grades 9–10, and North Peel Secondary School in Bramalea, Ontario, Canada for grades 11–12.

In school, he was regularly bullied because of his ethnicity.

He eventually learned boxing, which helped him resist the bullying.

Peters also became a fan of hip hop in his youth.

He began performing in Toronto in 1989 and won a Gemini Award in 2008.

Peters began performing in Toronto in 1989.

He has since gone on to perform in several countries.

By the 1990s, he was a well-connected DJ in the Toronto scene.

Peters's older brother, Clayton, serves as his manager.

In 1992, Peters met American comedian George Carlin, one of his biggest influencers, who advised him to get on stage whenever and wherever possible.

Peters said he "took that advice to heart, and I think that's the reason I am where I am now."

Peters credits the turning point in his career to his 2004 special on the Canadian TV show Comedy Now!, which was uploaded onto YouTube, where it became popular.

While the initial video upload featured his entire 45-minute performance, YouTube users subsequently uploaded segments of the performance in which Peters focused on individual cultural groups.

According to Peters, those segments were seen by the targeted cultural groups and were well received by them.

The video and its viral nature was referred to by Peters on his performance, Outsourced; when the audience cheered when he referred to earlier jokes, he exclaimed, "Look at you, you filthy downloaders!"

Peters hosted the Canada Day Comedy Festival 2006, and participated in a USO tour of Iraq, Afghanistan, Germany, Africa and Greenland in November 2007 with Wilmer Valderrama and Mayra Veronica.

He also produced and starred in the radio situation comedy series Monsoon House on CBC Radio One.

In 2007, 15 years later, he hosted one of Carlin's last shows before the comedian's death the following year.

In 2007, Peters was the first comedian to sell out Toronto's Air Canada Centre, selling more than 16,000 tickets in two days for the single show.

He ended up selling more than 30,000 tickets nationally over the two-day sales period.

Peters was the host of the televised 2008 Juno Awards ceremonies in Calgary on 6 April, 2008, for which he won a Gemini Award for "Best Performance or Host in a Variety Program or Series."

The show received the second-highest ratings of any Juno Awards broadcast.

According to Forbes, Peters earned an estimated $15 million between June 2009 and June 2010, continuing his run as one of the highest-paid comedians, after earning an estimated $5 million the prior year.

Forbes ranked him as the seventh-highest-paid comedian.

He broke a UK comedy sales record at London's O2 Arena when he sold over 16,000 tickets to his show in 2009.

Following the show's success, Peters accepted an invitation to host the Juno Awards for a second consecutive year; the 2009 Juno Awards took place in Vancouver on 29 March 2009.

His show in Sydney on 15 May 2010 had an audience of 13,880, making it the largest stand-up comedy show ever in Australia.

Peters's performances on 5–6 May 2012 in Singapore also set attendance records for a single stand-up comedian at the Singapore Indoor Stadium.

In 2013, he was number three on Forbes' list of the world's highest-paid comedians, and became the first comedian to get a Netflix stand-up special.

On September 28, 2013, Peters was awarded the 2013 Trailblazer award by the Association of South Asians in Media, Marketing and Entertainment (ASAMME) for good contributions to comedy.

He is among the first South Asians to achieve international success in the field.

In 2013, he earned $21 million, according to Forbes' estimate.

He also won the Peabody Award and the International Emmy Award for Best Arts Programming for producing Hip-Hop Evolution (2016).

He lives in Los Angeles.

In 2017, Peters made an appearance on Top Gear America in the third episode of season 1 as one of the guests.