Ziwe | |
---|---|
Birth name | Ziwerekoru Fumudoh |
Born | February 27, 1992 |
Education | Northwestern University ( BA) |
Years active | 2013–present |
Genres | |
Subject(s) | |
Website | Official website |
Ziwerekoru "Ziwe" Fumudoh [1] is an American comedian and writer known for her satirical commentary on politics, race relations, and young adulthood. [2] [3]
In 2017, she created the YouTube comedy show Baited with Ziwe and its 2020 Instagram Live iteration. [4] She wrote for Desus & Mero from 2018 to 2020, [5] and she co-hosted Crooked Media's Hysteria podcast in 2018. [6]
Fumudoh starred in and executive produced the Showtime variety series Ziwe (2021–2022). [7] [8] She published a collection of essays called Black Friend in October 2023. [9]
Born February 27, 1992, Fumudoh grew up in Lawrence, Massachusetts, the second of three children to parents who emigrated from Nigeria. [3] [10] [11] [12]
In 2010, Fumudoh graduated from Phillips Academy in Andover, Massachusetts. [1] [13] In 2014, she graduated from Northwestern University with a double major in radio, television, and film and African American studies, with a minor in creative writing: poetry. [3] [14] [15] On her first year at Northwestern, Fumudoh lived in McCulloch Hall. [16] While an undergraduate, she wrote for many student publications including: Purp Magazine, Northwestern Sketch Television, and Project SOARD. [17] [16]
In 2013, Fumudoh worked as a summer intern at Comedy Central on shows including The Daily Show and The Colbert Report. [13] [18] [5] During her senior year of college, she interned as a writer for The Onion and took improv classes at the iO theater. [19] At The Onion she worked in video, research, and contributing features. [20] From 2015 to 2020, she wrote for publications including The Riveter Magazine; Reductress; The Daily Dot; [21] Into The Gloss, where she wrote a column called "Operation Goo Goo Gah Gah"; [22] Vulture, where she wrote television recaps; [23] and The New Yorker.
After graduation, she worked at Lorne Michaels's Above Average Productions. [10] Her first television job was as a screenwriter on The Rundown with Robin Thede. [5] [18] [19]
In 2017, Fumudoh created Baited with Ziwe, a show on YouTube that featured her "baiting" her white friends into making unwitting racial faux pas. [5] In an interview, Fumudoh later said "I love that Baited allows viewers to laugh about race while still acknowledging its complexity. Of all projects I worked on, it's definitely one of my favorites." [24] In the same interview, she said that she got the inspiration for the show from asking her Caucasian coworkers what questions they would be uncomfortable to answer on camera. [24]
During the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, Fumudoh moved the show from YouTube to Instagram Live with new celebrity guests each week. [25] Guests included Caroline Calloway, Alison Roman, Alyssa Milano, and Rose McGowan. [26] She stated that her show's goals were to facilitate discussions about race while entertaining people and critiquing the system. [6] [27] [28] Baited with Ziwe would serve as a successful template for her talk show Ziwe.
In 2018, Fumudoh appeared frequently in Pop Show, a live show she created at Brooklyn's Union Hall in which she performs original pop songs. [18] [29] [30] That same year, Fumudoh co-hosted Hysteria, a podcast from Crooked Media. [6]
From 2018 to 2020, Fumudoh was a writer on the TV show Desus and Mero. [31] [32] A Forbes reviewer wrote that she had the "confidence of an old comedy pro". [18] During that time, Fumudoh joined the cast of Our Cartoon President as the voice of Kamala Harris. She also wrote the season 3 episode "Senate Control". [33]
In October 2020, it was announced that Fumudoh would work with Showtime on a new variety show, Ziwe. [34] The first season had six episodes and featured sketches, musical numbers, and interviews with celebrity guests including: Fran Libowitz, Bowen Yang, Phoebe Bridgers, Julio Torres, and Stacey Abrams. [35] Fumudoh hosted, wrote for, and produced the show. [36] Fumudoh collaborated with costume designer Pamela Shepard-Hill on her costumes. [7]
The second season was heavily teased prior to broadcast by mainstream publications including: Variety, [37] Forbes, [38] and Deadline. [39] Season 2 of Ziwe built upon the successful format of Season 1, expanding to 12 episodes. [35] Celebrity guests included: Ilana Glazer, Mia Khalifa, Emily Ratajkowski, Katya Zamolodchikova, Julia Fox, Bob the Drag Queen, Joel Kim Booster, Amber Riley, Michael Che, and Hannibal Burress, among others. [35] The hyper virality of clips from Season 2 of Ziwe on TikTok cemented Fumudoh in the cultural zeitgeist of Millenials and Gen Z, achieving Fumudoh's dream of becoming "The Ellen Degeneres of race relations." [3] In April 2023, Showtime chose not to renew the series for a third season. [40] In doing so, Showtime left the late-night talk show genre altogether. [41]
In 2021, Fumudoh wrote for the television series Dickinson and appeared in two episodes as Sojourner Truth. [42] That same year, she played Sophie Iwobi, a comedic commentator on a late-night show resembling Ziwe, in one episode of the third season of Succession. The character was tailored to more closely resemble Fumudoh after she was cast. [43]
In September 2023, Fumudoh was part of the "My Wings, My Way" campaign for Victoria's Secret. [44]
In August 2020, it was announced that Fumudoh was writing a collection of humorous essays, The Book of Ziwe, for Abrams Books. [45] The book was later retitled Black Friend and was released on October 24, 2023. [9]To promote the book, Fumudoh went on a cross country tour between October 23 and November 8, 2023 visiting 8 cities, including: Los Angeles, San Francisco, Denver, Minneapolis, Chicago, Atlanta, Philadelphia, and Washington D.C. [46]
On December 18, 2023, Fumudoh interviewed the scandal-plagued former U.S. House representative George Santos on her YouTube channel. [47] The interview, laden with Fumudoh's trademark gotcha! style, was widely covered in political news outlets and Hollywood Entertainment columns alike, including: New York Times, [48] Washington Post, [49] CNN, [50] CBS News, [51] The Hill, [52] Mother Jones, [53] LA Times, [54] Axios, [55] Variety, [56] The Daily Beast, [57] Buzzfeed, [58] Business Insider, [59] The Advocate, [60] among others.
Fumudoh has cited Jonathan Swift and Stephen Colbert as influences, having been introduced to them by a teacher during her freshman year of high school. [61] Naming the latter as a foundational reference, she has said of his appearance at the 2006 White House Correspondents' Dinner, "It was so unbelievable that he’d speak to authority or even around authority like that... I was really compelled by his satire." [62] She has also taken inspiration from Oprah, the works of Zach Galifanakis, and Nathan Fielder, [62] as well as from shows like Arrested Development, The Office, and 30 Rock. [63]
Fumudoh lives in New York City. [9]
Year | Title | Role | Notes |
---|---|---|---|
2017–2018 | The Rundown with Robin Thede | None | Writer (7 episodes) |
2018–2020 | Desus & Mero | None | Writer (66 episodes) |
2019–2020 | Our Cartoon President | Kamala Harris, various characters (voice) | 11 episodes; also writer |
2020–2021 | Stephen Colbert Presents Tooning Out The News | Various voices | 12 episodes |
2021–2022 | Ziwe | Herself (host) | Also producer, creator, and writer |
2021 | Succession | Sophie Iwobi | Episode: " The Disruption" |
Dickinson | Sojourner Truth | 2 episodes, also writer | |
2021–2023 | The Great North | Amelia (voice) | 9 episodes |
2022 | That Damn Michael Che | Herself | Episode: "Black Mediocrity" |
Central Park | (voice) | Episode: "The Puffs Go Poof" | |
2023 | Teenage Euthanasia | Various voices | 2 episodes |
TBA | Shell | Post-production |
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