Sean Hannity

Sean Patrick Hannity (born December 30, 1961) is an American conservative broadcast host and writer.

In 1982, Hannity started a house-painting business and a few years later, worked as a building contractor in Santa Barbara, California.

Hannity worked as a general contractor and volunteered as a talk show host at UC Santa Barbara in 1989.

He later joined WVNN in Athens, Alabama and shortly afterward, WGST in Atlanta.

He hosted his first talk radio show in 1989 at the volunteer college station at UC Santa Barbara, KCSB-FM, while working as a general contractor.

The show aired for 40 hours of air time.

Regarding his first show, he said, "I wasn't good at it. I was terrible."

Hannity's weekly show on KCSB was canceled after less than a year after a controversy.

During two shows, gay and lesbian rights were discussed in what was considered to be a contentious manner.

(See LGBT issues below.) The university board that governed the station later reversed its decision after a campaign conducted on Hannity's behalf by the Santa Barbara chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union argued that the station had discriminated against Hannity's First Amendment rights.

When the station refused to issue Hannity a public apology and more airtime, he did not return to KCSB.

After leaving KCSB, Hannity placed an advertisement in radio publications, presenting himself as "the most talked about college radio host in America".

Radio station WVNN in Athens, Alabama (part of the Huntsville media market), then hired him to be the afternoon talk show host.

From Huntsville, he moved to WGST in Atlanta in 1992, filling the slot vacated by Neal Boortz, who had moved to competing station WSB.

In 1996, Hannity and Alan Colmes co-hosted Hannity & Colmes on Fox.

In September 1996, Fox News co-founder Roger Ailes hired the then relatively unknown Hannity to host a television program under the working title Hannity and LTBD ("liberal to be determined").

Alan Colmes was then hired to co-host and the show debuted as Hannity & Colmes.

Later that year, Hannity left WGST for New York, where WABC had him substitute for their afternoon drive time host during Christmas week.

He won awards from the National Association of Broadcasters in 2003 and 2007.

After Colmes announced his departure in January 2008, Hannity merged the Hannity & Colmes show into Hannity.

He hosts The Sean Hannity Show, a nationally syndicated talk radio show, and has also hosted a commentary program, Hannity, on Fox News, since 2009.

After leaving WGST, he worked at WABC in New York until 2013.

Since 2014, Hannity has worked at WOR.

Hannity was an early supporter of Donald Trump in the 2016 presidential election, and often acted as an unofficial spokesman for him.

When Trump was president, White House advisors characterized Hannity as the "shadow" chief of staff, and he reportedly phoned the White House and spoke to Trump most weeknights.

According to Forbes, by 2018 Hannity had become one of the most-watched hosts in cable news and most-listened-to hosts in talk radio, due in part to his closeness and access to Trump.

He privately urged Trump administration officials before and during the January 6 United States Capitol attack to cease some of their efforts to retain the presidency and to urge Trump's supporters to leave the Capitol.

Hannity was among the hosts named in the Dominion Voting Systems v. Fox News Network defamation lawsuit for broadcasting false statements about the plaintiff company's voting machines that Fox News settled for $787.5 million and required Fox News to acknowledge that the broadcast statements were false.

Hannity has an honorary degree from Liberty University.

Hannity has promoted conspiracy theories such as "birtherism" (claims that then-President Barack Obama was not a legitimate U.S. citizen), claims regarding the murder of Seth Rich, falsehoods about Hillary Clinton's health, and false claims of election fraud in the 2020 presidential election.

He has written three New York Times best-selling books: Let Freedom Ring: Winning the War of Liberty over Liberalism; Deliver Us from Evil: Defeating Terrorism, Despotism, and Liberalism; and Conservative Victory: Defeating Obama's Radical Agenda, and released a fourth, Live Free or Die, in 2020.

Hannity was born in New York City, New York, the son of Lillian (née Flynn) and Hugh Hannity.

Lillian worked as a stenographer and a corrections officer at a county jail, while Hugh was a World War II veteran and family-court officer.

He was the youngest of four siblings and the only boy.

All his grandparents immigrated to the United States from Ireland.

He grew up in Franklin Square, New York on Long Island.

In his youth, Hannity worked as a paperboy delivering issues of the New York Daily News and the Long Island Daily Press.

His parents were initially supporters of President John F. Kennedy, eventually growing more Republican in their views as time went on, though they resisted being overtly political at home.

Hannity attended Sacred Heart Seminary in Hempstead, New York and St. Pius X Preparatory Seminary in Uniondale, New York.

He attended New York University and Adelphi University, but did not graduate from either.