Brian Kilmeade

Life and career

Kilmeade was born in New York City, New York. He is of Irish and Italian descent. After graduating from Massapequa High School in 1982, Kilmeade attended C.W. Post (Brookville, New York), where he graduated with a Bachelor of Arts (1986). He began his career as a correspondent on Channel One News, a daily national high school television news program. He later served as an anchor and host for KHSC-TV in Ontario, California. He co-hosted The Jim Brown Show on XTRA-AM (KLSD-XTRA 1360 Fox Sports San Diego), an all-sports radio network. In 1993, Kilmeade joined Brown as part of the announcing team for the inaugural Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC 1) event, conducting postfight interviews. He moved into the play-by-play role for UFC 2 and UFC 3 in 1994.

Kilmeade was a freelance sports anchor for WVIT (NBC) in Hartford, beginning in 1997. He was a sideline reporter for the MSG Network, where he covered the New York/New Jersey MetroStars, a major league soccer team based in Giants Stadium.

Later, he worked as a feature reporter and anchor for Newsport TV, where he hosted Newsport Journal, a daily magazine show for the national sports network. Additionally, he also anchored Scoreboard Central, a live half-hour general sports program. According to his website biography, he has ten years’ experience as a stand-up comedian.

In April 2006, he filled in the Fox News Radio time slot of former Fox anchor Tony Snow, who had left the network to become press secretary in the George W. Bush Administration. He is a frequent anchor of The Five airing nightly at 5 p.m. eastern on FNC.

Kilmeade is Roman Catholic. He is married to Dawn (DeGaetano) Kilmeade, and they have 3 children: Brian, Kirstyn, and Kaitlyn.

Books

Controversial remarks

Kilmeade faced criticism after expressing support for the far-right English Defence League, often described as an extremist group, during an interview with their leader 'Tommy Robinson' (real name Stephen Lennon). He finished the interview with the words "Tommy, we got your back and we'll definitely look to keep in touch, it's great what you're doing".

"We keep marrying other species and other ethnics"

On July 8, 2009, Kilmeade and two co-hosts were discussing a study that, based on research done in Finland and Sweden, showed people who stay married are less likely to suffer from Alzheimer's disease. Kilmeade, who is Italian-Irish American, commented, "[In the United States] we keep marrying other species and other ethnics. . . ." Ignoring attempts by co-host Gretchen Carlson (who is of Swedish descent) to interrupt him, he added, "See, the problem is the Swedes have pure genes. Because they marry other Swedes . . . Finns marry other Finns, so they have a pure society. In America we marry everybody, we marry Italians and Irish."

On July 20, 2009, Kilmeade apologized for his remarks, saying, "I made comments that were offensive to many people. That was not my intention, and looking back at those comments I realize they were inappropriate. For that I sincerely apologize. America [is a] huge melting pot, and that is what makes us such a great country. . . ."

"All terrorists are Muslims"

In a follow-up discussion to Bill O'Reilly's appearance on The View on October 14, 2010 – in which Whoopi Goldberg and Joy Behar walked off after O'Reilly said that people did not want a mosque built at Ground Zero because "...Muslims killed us on 9/11" – Kilmeade dismissed the View debate as "elementary" and said:

They were outraged that somebody was saying ...

There was a certain group of people that attacked us on 9/11. It wasn't just one person, it was one religion. Not all Muslims are terrorists, but all terrorists are Muslims.

Back on his radio show Monday, Kilmeade said,

What I should have said, and I’d like to clarify, is all terrorists who killed us on 9/11; with the Cole; and the Khobar; and the ‘98 embassies; that’s what I should have said.

Kilmeade's remarks have been criticized and Keith Olbermann called the claim "both inaccurate and prejudiced" as groups other than Muslims have committed terrorist acts.

"You grew up on tacos"

On October 4, 2013, Fox News meteorologist Maria Molina was brought on Fox and Friends to talk about tacos to celebrate National Taco Day. Kilmeade asked Molina: "So what are the tips we need to know? You grew up on tacos, correct?" Molina denied it, explaining she was Nicaraguan and that tacos are not native to Nicaragua. At this point Kilmeade's co-host Elisabeth Hasselbeck asked Molina "But if you did, if you did grow up on tacos?"

"Bowe Bergdahl's father looks like a member of the Taliban"

On June 3, 2014, Kilmeade made a reference about Bowe Bergdahl's father on air stating, “I mean, he says he was growing his beard because his son was in captivity. Well, your son’s out now. So if you really don’t want to no longer look like a member of the Taliban, you don’t have to look like a member of the Taliban. Are you out of razors?"

Jimmy Kimmel criticism and Kimmel's response

On September 20, 2017, Kilmeade said, "“Sunday’s politically charged Emmys may have been the lowest-rated in history, but that’s not stopping Hollywood elites like comedian Jimmy Kimmel from pushing their politics on the rest of the country.”

This prompted Jimmy Kimmel to call Kilmeade a "phony little creep."

Kimmel's response was “Oh, he’s such a fan — I think he’s been on the show. He follows me on Twitter; he asked me to write a blurb for his book, which I did; he calls my agent looking for projects. He’s dying to be a member of the Hollywood elite. The only reason he’s not a member of the Hollywood elite is because nobody will hire him to be one. And you know, the reason I’m talking about this is because my son had an open-heart surgery, then has to have two more, and because of that I learned that there are kids with no insurance in the same situation. I don’t get anything out of this, Brian, you phony little creep. Oh, I’ll pound you when I see you. That will be my blurb for your next book: ‘Brian Kilmeade is a phony little creep.’”