Loni Love (born July 12, 1971) is an American comedian, television host, actress, and author. While working as an electrical engineer in the early 2000s, she switched to music engineering, until later launching a career in stand-up comedy. She was the runner-up on Star Search 2003 and was named among the "Top 10 Comics to Watch" in both Variety and Comedy Central in 2009. She is one of the co-hosts of the syndicated daytime talk show The Real, which is in its sixth season, alongside Jeannie Mai, Tamera Mowry, Adrienne Bailon, and Amanda Seales, which premiered on July 15, 2013.[3]
Love was born in Detroit, Michigan, and grew up in the Brewster-Douglass Housing Projects.[4][5][6] Prior to her career as a comedian, she was an electrical engineer,[7] an experience she talks about in many of her acts.[8] After graduating from Cass Technical High School in 1989, she had worked for a time on the General Motors assembly line putting doors on 1993 Oldsmobile Cutlasses, work which ignited her interest in electrical engineering.[6] Love then received her bachelor's degree in electrical engineering from Prairie View A&M University in Texas.[9] While at Prairie View, she minored in music and was also a member of the Eta Beta chapter of Delta Sigma Theta.[10] It was there that she discovered stand-up comedy after winning a $50 competition and then performed frequently during her college life.[11][9] After finding work as an engineer at Xerox in California, she continued to do stand-up after work in clubs and became a regular at the Laugh Factory.[12] After eight years of working at Xerox, Love resigned to pursue comedy during a layoff to prevent someone else from losing their job.[12] Recently Love did a show on VH1 called I Love the 2000s which she gives her view on 2000-2009's pop culture highlights and became a Roundtable panelist for her friend and fellow comic Chelsea Handler.
Love started her comedic career in 2003, after appearing on Star Search, reaching the finals and losing in a close competition to the winner.[13] Since then, she has appeared in films and numerous television shows.[9][14] She has also acted in dramatic theatre plays.[citation needed ] Love was named "Hot Comic" for 2009 in Campus Activity magazine and one of the "Top 10 Comics to Watch" in both Variety and Comedy Central.[9] She was awarded the Jury Prize for best stand-up at the 2003 US Comedy Arts Festival.[citation needed ] In 2008 Love became the CNN correspondent for D. L. Hughley Breaks the News and covered the inauguration of President Barack Obama. She also appears regularly in comedy clubs and the college comedy circuit.[citation needed ] In late 2009, Love recorded her first one-hour Comedy Central special, America's Sister, which aired on May 8, 2010.[15] In July 2013, Loni released her first comedy advice book titled "Love Him Or Leave Him But Don't Get Stuck With The Tab". It was published by Simon and Schuster. In 2013, Love became one of the hosts of the syndicated daytime talk show, The Real, alongside Tamera Mowry, Adrienne Bailon, Jeannie Mai, and Tamar Braxton, which premiered on July 15, 2013 on Fox Television Stations.[16] The show was approved to return September 15, 2014. She and her co-hosts have won two NAACP Image Awards and a Daytime Emmy Award for their work. In 2015, she appeared in the comedy film Paul Blart: Mall Cop 2, with Kevin James, and the action film Bad Asses on the Bayou, with Danny Trejo and Danny Glover.[17] She also won the ninth season Worst Cooks in America in 2016, winning $50,000 for her chosen charity.[18]
Note: The year given is the year of the ceremony