Background and career
Christopher Edward Hansen (born September 13, 1959) is an American television presenter, journalist, and YouTube personality. During his tenure as a correspondent for Dateline NBC, he hosted the program's segment To Catch a Predator (2004–2007), in which online predators would be caught using sting operations. After parting ways with NBC in 2013, he began hosting Killer Instinct on Investigation Discovery in 2015, a short-lived series that documented homicide investigations. That same year, he replaced Matt Doran as the host of the syndicated series Crime Watch Daily, which he hosted for two seasons and had his own segment similar to his Dateline feature, Hansen vs. Predator. He co-founded the true crime–oriented streaming service TruBlu in 2020, for which he produced and starred in the web series Takedown with Chris Hansen. Hansen has earned several accolades, including ten Emmy Awards, five Edward R. Murrow Awards, three Clarion awards, the National Press Club award, and awards for excellence from the Associated Press and United Press International. Hansen and numerous subjects of his investigations have garnered online cult followings, and Hansen is considered a progenitor in content centered around sting operations. In 2025, a documentary on his career, titled Predators, was distributed by MTV Entertainment Studios. In 2026, A24 released the film Primetime, starring Robert Pattinson as Hansen. Primetime is based on Hansen's work on To Catch a Predator, and a 2009 Esquire story on the show, "Tonight on Dateline This Man Will Die".
Christopher Edward Hansen was born in Chicago, Illinois, on September 13, 1959, and grew up in West Bloomfield Township and Birmingham, Michigan. In an interview with City Pulse, Hansen said that he first wanted to be a journalist when he was 14 years old, watching and following the police and FBI investigation of the disappearance of Jimmy Hoffa. Hansen attended Brother Rice High School in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan. Hansen graduated from Michigan State University with a Bachelor of Arts in telecommunication in 1981.
In 1981, Hansen became a reporter for NBC affiliate WILX in Lansing, Michigan during his senior year at Michigan State University. He later reported for WFLA in Tampa, Florida, various newspapers and radio stations in Michigan and WXYZ in Detroit. In 1988, he was hired as an investigative reporter and anchor at WDIV in Detroit. In May 1993, Hansen joined NBC News as a correspondent for the short-lived news magazine Now with Tom Brokaw and Katie Couric.
Hansen's notable work for Dateline includes coverage of the Columbine High School massacre, the Oklahoma City bombing, the Unabomber and the TWA Flight 800 disaster, and investigative reports on Indian child slave labor and counterfeit prescription drug sales in China. Hansen was responsible for most of Dateline's coverage of the September 11 attacks, as well as stories on terrorist groups and the operations of Al-Qaeda. He also exposed how a group linked to Osama bin Laden had attempted to buy missiles and nuclear weapons components, and he also worked on an exclusive report on the Air France Flight 8969 hijacking. His series on deficient airport security resulted in the Federal Aviation Administration investigating and ultimately revising its policies.
In conjunction with the website Perverted-Justice, Hansen hosted a series of Dateline NBC reports under the title To Catch a Predator. Volunteers from Perverted-Justice impersonated minors such as pre-teens to young-mid teenagers (usually 11–15 years old) in chat rooms online and agreed to meet with adults for sex. The meeting places were "sting houses", where camera crews from NBC, and in later episodes local police, awaited potential sexual predators. Capitalizing on the success of Hansen and his Predator investigations, Dateline NBC created three Tuesday night spin-offs of its original concept; Hansen hosted To Catch a Con Man and To Catch an I.D. Thief. In March 2007, Hansen's book, To Catch a Predator: Protecting Your Kids from Online Enemies Already in Your Home, was released in the American market. In August 2013, NBC decided not to renew its contract with Hansen, ultimately ending his tenure of 20 years.
In 2015, Hansen hosted Killer Instinct, a show on Investigation Discovery chronicling homicide cases. The show's initial 10-episode season premiered on August 17, 2015. In 2015, Hansen planned a new independent television show called Hansen vs. Predator, a spin-off of his original show To Catch a Predator. The program was intended to premiere online, crowdfunded via Kickstarter with Hansen hoping to raise $400,000; however the Kickstarter only raised $89,000. Hansen offered promotional memorabilia as part of the campaign that donors claimed to have never received, and he was arrested in January 2019 for paying for $13,000 worth of promotional items with a bad check. Later broadcast rights were sold, with Hansen vs. Predator becoming a recurring segment on Crime Watch Daily.
