Background and career
Gregory John Gutfeld (born September 12, 1964) is an American television host, political commentator, comedian, and author. He is the host of the late-night comedy talk show Gutfeld!, which was formerly aired on Saturday nights as The Greg Gutfeld Show from May 2015 until March 2021, when it was announced that the show would move to weeknights. Gutfeld is also one of five co-hosts and panelists on the political talk show The Five. Both of the shows air on Fox News. From 2007 to 2015, he hosted the 3 a.m. series Red Eye, a late-night talk show which also aired on Fox News.
Gutfeld was born in San Mateo, California to Jacqueline Bernice "Jackie" (née Cauhape) and Alfred Jack Gutfeld. Growing up Catholic he attended the all-boys Roman Catholic Junípero Serra High School in San Mateo. In 1987, he graduated from the University of California, Berkeley with a BA degree in English. In a 2009 interview, he said his politics changed while in college:
I became a conservative by being around liberals, and I became a libertarian by being around conservatives. You realize that there's something distinctly in common between the two groups, the left and the right; the worst part of each of them is the moralizing.
After college, Gutfeld interned at The American Spectator, as an assistant to conservative writer R. Emmett Tyrrell. He then worked as a staff writer at Prevention magazine and as an editor for various Rodale Press magazines. In 1995, he became a staff writer at Men's Health. He was promoted to editor-in-chief of Men's Health in 1999. In 2000, he was replaced by David Zinczenko, a publisher. Gutfeld then became editor-in-chief of Stuff, at the time owned by Dennis Publishing, a British company. During his tenure, circulation increased from 750,000 to 1.2 million. In 2003, Gutfeld hired several dwarfs to attend a conference of the Magazine Publishers of America on the topic of "buzz", with instructions to be as loud and annoying as possible. The stunt generated publicity but led to Gutfeld being fired soon afterwards; he then became "director of brand development" at Dennis Publishing. He edited the company's Maxim magazine in the U.K. from 2004 to 2006. His contract expired without renewal after losses in readership under his tenure. Gutfeld was one of the first posting contributors to The Huffington Post, from its launch in 2005 until October 2008. Frequent targets of his commentaries included Huffington Post colleagues Deepak Chopra, Cenk Uygur, and Arianna Huffington.
Beginning on February 5, 2007, Gutfeld served as host of the late-night talk show Red Eye on the Fox News Channel. The hour-long show initially aired at 2am. ET Monday through Saturday mornings and at 11pm on Saturday evenings. However, beginning in October 2007, the show began airing at 3am Monday through Saturday mornings while retaining its 11pm timeslot on Saturday evenings. From 2007 to 2013, Bill Schulz served as Gutfeld's sidekick and Andy Levy was the show's ombudsman. Schulz had been Gutfeld's colleague at Stuff magazine, and Levy was a fellow blogger at The Huffington Post. On July 11, 2011, Gutfeld became a co-host and panelist on the Fox News political talk show The Five, which airs weekdays at 5:00 P.M. ET. Gutfeld left Red Eye in February 2015, with Tom Shillue succeeding him as host.
On May 31, 2015, Gutfeld began hosting a new weekly late-night talk show on Fox News called The Greg Gutfeld Show; which aired on Saturdays at 10pm. In February 2021, it was announced that beginning in the second quarter, the show would move to weeknights at 11pm; on March 10, it was announced that it would be called Gutfeld! and premiere on April 5, 2021. In August 2021, Gutfeld! overtook The Late Show with Stephen Colbert in the nightly ratings, becoming the highest-rated late-night talk show in the United States (though "Gutfeld!" aired in prime time at 8 p.m. on the West Coast and did not repeat at 11 p.m.). It averaged 2.12 million nightly viewers, more than The Late Show, The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon, and Jimmy Kimmel Live!. By the end of 2021, the combined viewership for Gutfeld! and The Five averaged over five million viewers. In June 2023, Fox News announced that Gutfeld! would move to 10 P.M. ET beginning July 17, as part of a larger realignment of its primetime schedule, which means the show is no longer considered "late night" as it is no longer competing with other late night shows. Gutfeld has appeared as a guest on Coffee with Scott Adams and The Adam Carolla Show.
