He's a licensed doctor, comedian, and judge.
What made him walk off the set of The Masked Singer?
How does he even keep his medical license current with all of his entertainment gigs?
Here's the real scoop on what you probably don't know about Ken Jeong.
Born to South Korean immigrants in Detroit, Ken Jeong grew up and attended high school
in Greensboro, North Carolina.
It seems as if he was destined for success from the start, as the self-described "popular
geek" very much excelled in academics.
Before graduating at the early age of 16 years old, Jeong participated in numerous extracurriculars
including competing for the Quiz Bowl team, playing violin in the orchestra, and participating
in student council.
However, it turned out that his talents weren't the only highlights of his high school career.
Jeong also participated in a mock male beauty pageant to appoint the next "Mr. Buccaneer"
at his high school, where the then-16-year-old reportedly posed in his swim trunks for the
swimsuit competition.
Jeong told NPR:
"That was where I discovered my own comedy bug.
I was posing like Arnold Schwarzenegger and just doing all these things and I got a standing
O. And, I ended up singing a Lionel Richie song, The Commodores' 'Three Times a Lady'
on [the] piano, and that got another standing O."
Though Jeong ultimately finished as runner-up in the competition, we now know where his
hilarious comedy roots originated.
Few Hollywood actors can boast a medical degree along with their Hollywood awards, but for
Ken Jeong, balancing his medical career with his comedy hobby was a regular pastime.
After earning his medical degree from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill,
the actor practiced medicine for several years in Los Angeles — all while pursuing stand-up
comedy on the side.
Jeong told NPR:
"Internal medicine was my specialty, basically general practice with an emphasis on adult
medicine.
During the day, I was a doctor.
At night, you know, I was a comic.
[...] It became like golf, you know, in many ways.
Most doctors have golf as a hobby.
Mine was doing comedy."
In fact, the star was reportedly so serious about his job as a doctor that you could barely
tell he was a comedian during his off-time, telling NPR that he was "super serious" and
"hard-core" as a trained physician.
In an interview with People, Jeong had this to say about his career in medicine:
"I was so intense as a doctor.
And I was always stressed out, patients were surprised I did stand-up comedy on the side."
"I thought I'd forever be a doctor.
I thought that was my path."
After practicing medicine for several years, Ken Jeong's big break came when he was cast
in the 2007 movie Knocked Up, where he had a small but fitting role playing a doctor.
The day after he wrapped up his part in the hit comedy, Jeong decided to quit practicing
medicine.
Additionally, it was all due to the encouragement of his wife that pushed him to leave medicine
to work in entertainment full-time.
"And she was like, 'Yeah, if you don't quit now you'll never quit.'"
Jeong told Journal of Medicine:
"I had filmed 'Knocked Up' during a vacation week.
My wife [Tran] was like a good college coach telling the star player it was time to go
pro.
[...] It was really my wife's confidence in me that encouraged me to do this full time.
I owe my whole career to her."
Though Ken Jeong no longer practices medicine, it turns out that his medical degree has proven
very useful, even in his Hollywood career.
In addition to being cast as a doctor in his first breakout role in Knocked Up, Jeong also
used his real-life medical experience as inspiration for his ABC sitcom, Dr. Ken, which aired from
2015 to 2017.
Jeong not only took on the role of lead actor — playing a brilliant doctor with a questionable
bedside manner — but also served as creator, writer, and executive producer of the show.
And it turns out that Jeong's medical degree can come in handy in other instances, too.
The doctor-turned-actor once rushed to assist a woman having a medical emergency in the
middle of his stand-up comedy set in 2018.
Reportedly, Jeong was in the middle of performing at the Stand Up Comedy Club in Phoenix when
an audience member started having a seizure.
Jeong quickly rushed to the woman's aid, even staying with her until she was transported
to the hospital.
Many may best know Ken Jeong for his iconic role as the mobster Mr. Chow in The Hangover,
but a lesser-known fact is that the actor actually got the call for the 2009 hit movie
right when his wife, Tran, was undergoing chemotherapy treatment for breast cancer.
Speaking to ABC News, Jeong discussed what it was like to be filming the movie during
a tough time for his family.
The actor revealed that he had actually snuck in some Vietnamese phrases into his character's
dialogue as a way to honor some inside jokes with his wife, who is Vietnamese-American.
Jeong told the outlet:
"I would ad-lib actually.
I'm Korean and I was speaking Vietnamese in the movie and, like, I say, 'kai chee' (Vietnamese
for 'chicken die') and all these things to get my henchmen to get out.
There were these inside jokes between me and [my wife]."
"He would just make me laugh."
"I would sprinkle that all throughout the movie, just for me."
In the same interview, Jeong describes his ad-libs in the film as the "weirdest love
letter" to his wife.
Fans of The Masked Singer have no doubt seen Ken Jeong's banter-filled interactions with
frequent guest judge Joel McHale, with whom Jeong co-starred on the sitcom Community for
six seasons.
In fact, the two frequently team up for the sake of a good laugh, but they also teamed
up during their COVID-19 quarantine in 2020 to develop a podcast called "The Darkest Timeline"
where they discuss the pandemic, their time on Community, and pretty much anything else
they can think of.
Jeong credits McHale for the creation of the 25-episode podcast.
As he told Variety,
"If it wasn't for Joel I would never have even thought about trying to do a podcast.
It's still one of my favorite things I've ever done, because ... We just did it ourselves,
we funded it ourselves and to be honest, we were doing it for ourselves."
Marvel movies are absolutely full of cameos, so much that you may have missed the one in
2019's Avengers: Endgame made by Ken Jeong.
When Scott Lang returns from the Quantum Realm only to find himself locked in a storage unit,
it's Jeong's security guard who sees Lang's plea for help on the security cameras and
suspiciously escorts him out of the building.
It's a brief cameo, but the perfect wink for Jeong’s fans.
It's not all that surprising to see Jeong in Avengers: Endgame, given that the film's
directors, the Russo brothers, were executive producers on the sitcom Community in which
Jeong played Ben Chang.
Jeong's time on Community also had him working with Captain Marvel herself, Brie Larson,
and Yvette Nicole Brown, who also had a role in Avengers: Endgame as the government agent
who shares an elevator with Tony Stark and Steve Rogers before alerting security that
something is amiss.
While Ken Jeong may no longer spend his days practicing medicine, he is sure to maintain
his medical license in California, which has enabled him to do things like help the aforementioned
fan at his comedy show.
According to his license, which is good through 2024, he's not completely retired from practicing.
He puts in anywhere from one to nine hours each of telemedicine, research, teaching,
administration, patient care, and "other" duties.
Even though that's not an astounding number of hours of medical practice each year, there's
more to keeping his medical license current than just paying a fee.
According to the Medical Board of California, a current medical license can only be renewed
if the physician has completed a minimum of 50 hours of Continuing Medical Education every
two years.
So, while Jeong may not practice medicine daily, he still puts in the work to stay up-to-date
on the most current medical standards.
With his continuing medical expertise and celebrity exposure, Ken Jeong is the perfect
candidate to help Americans stay updated about current issues in medicine — and that's
exactly what he's been doing in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic.
Early on in the pandemic in May 2020, Jeong appeared virtually on The Ellen DeGeneres
Show to answer questions about COVID-19, including ways to reduce stress and boost immunity during
the pandemic.
Then, once the COVID-19 vaccine became widely available, Jeong appeared on The Late Late
Show with James Corden to debunk myths about the vaccine and address misinformation.
He told Corden,
"And I think that there's so much misinformation out there and not just by extremists.
It’s just, there’s just so much confusion."
Jeong has also spent time on Twitter encouraging people to stop listening to people who aren't
trained medical professionals.
In response to a quote by Joe Rogan explaining he isn't a medical professional, Jeong tweeted,
"I am a doctor.
I'm a respected source of information.
Get vaccinated."
As a judge on The Masked Singer, Ken Jeong couldn't hide his frustration when former
New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani was revealed in the April 20, 2022, episode.
Jeong was rendered speechless when Giuliani was unmasked, ultimately walking off the stage
in apparent disgust.
"I've had multiple times where I was surprised."
Many fans weren't totally surprised because reports had leaked months earlier that Giuliani
was a contestant and that both Jeong and Robin Thicke had walked off stage upon his reveal.
Still, once fans saw the reveal themselves, many took to Twitter to share their support
for Jeong and dismay at Giuliani's casting.
While, as of May 2022, Jeong has yet to speak publicly about the incident, an insider told
People that Jeong walked offstage because of Giuliani's role in COVID misinformation.
The source told the outlet:
"Ken has been incredibly vocal about how the previous administration handled many things
but especially COVID-19 [...] To get someone who helped to spread misinformation [...] to
appear on his show was going to set him off."
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