Ryan Seacrest, born in Atlanta on 24 December 1974, has hosted Wheel of Fortune since September 2024, when he replaced long-time host Pat Sajak. He is also known for American Idol and Dick Clark’s New Year’s Rockin’ Eve.
Ryan John Seacrest was born on 24 December 1974 in Atlanta, the son of homemaker Constance Marie (née Zullinger) and real estate lawyer Gary Lee Seacrest. His father served as a lieutenant in the US Army, in which his grandfather Henry Gene Skeen was a major general. His mother told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution: “Instead of playing with G.I. Joes or Cowboys and Indians, Ryan would always have a little microphone and do shows in the house.”
At 16, while still at Dunwoody High School, he won an internship at the Atlanta radio station WSTR, where Tom Sullivan trained him in many parts of radio. When a regular DJ called in sick, Sullivan put him on the air for his first show, and he was given the weekend overnight shift. He kept working there until he graduated in 1993, studied journalism at the University of Georgia that autumn while continuing a radio show in Athens, and left at 19 to move to Los Angeles to pursue broadcasting.
His television career began in 1993 with the first season of ESPN’s Radical Outdoor Challenge. He hosted three children’s game shows, Gladiators 2000 (1994–1996), Wild Animal Games (1995) and Click (1997), and in 2001 the reality show Ultimate Revenge.
In 2002 he became co-host of the new Fox series American Idol with comedian Brian Dunkleman, and the following year became sole host after Dunkleman resigned. The show averaged 26 million viewers weekly and made him recognisable around the world. In July 2009 he signed a $45 million deal that made him the highest-paid reality television host at the time, and in 2012 a two-year $30 million deal. He remained host through the end of its original run in April 2016 and returned for the ABC revival.
In 2005 he became executive producer and co-host of ABC’s Dick Clark’s New Year’s Rockin’ Eve, performing much of the hosting when Clark was recovering from a stroke, and he became sole host after Clark died in 2012. By the 2019–20 edition he had hosted for 15 consecutive years. In 2006 E! announced a three-year, $21 million deal for him to host programmes including E! News and red-carpet coverage, and in 2012 he signed with NBCUniversal and worked on Olympic coverage.
He co-hosted Live with Kelly and Ryan from May 2017, has also hosted American Top 40 and On Air with Ryan Seacrest, and won an Emmy for Jamie Oliver’s Food Revolution in 2010. He has received Emmy nominations for American Idol every year from 2004 to 2013 and in 2016.
After 2009 the New Year’s show was renamed to include his name, and its 2017 edition drew 25.6 million viewers, the highest in six years. Early in his career he also hosted NBC’s Saturday Night Movie in the autumn and winter of 2000 and played a game-show host on Beverly Hills, 90210.
Image: Ryan Seacrest speaking at a USO event in 2016 (file photo). Photo: Jim Greenhill from McLean, USA / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 2.0)
