Jeannie Mai gets paid to share her two cents and has even won awards for it. The California native is popularly known for being a cohost on the daytime talk show The Real, but she has an extensive resume for her hosting credits.
How Did Jeannie Mai Become a TV Host?
Before pursuing her oncamera career, the Emmy winner had a love and talent for makeup. After graduating high school in San Jose, California, Jeannie became a makeup artist at MAC and quickly worked her way up to work with celebrity clients.
“When I was a makeup artist, I traveled and worked for MAC as a representative to not only do celebrities’ makeup, but I also brought it home to teach everyday women in the Bay Area,” she shared during a 2021 interview with New Beauty. “No matter what field they were in, I used makeup to reach them and help them color in what they wanted people to know about them. I was really good at that, and it felt good to help other women discover themselves.”
Jeannie went on to pitch her own segment for the Bay Area’s KTBU, where she would teach viewers how to dress and do their makeup for specific occasions. She ended up landing the gig that she produced and hosted.
“At some point I combined my hosting skills from home with my makeup skills, and I believe that’s exactly how I landed in TV because at the time, it was the only medium to speak to millions of people at once – there was no social media like there is today,” she continued to the outlet.
What Other TV Shows Has Jeannie Mai Hosted?
Jeannie went on to work for other news outlets like MTV’s Total Request Live and Good Day Sacramento.
The TV personality landed her first primetime hosting role for USA Network’s Character Fantasy in 2005.
Jeannie was previously a fashion consultant for The Biggest Loser and correspondent for NBC’s Extra TV with Mario Lopez and Style Network’s How Do I Look?
After making a name for herself in the entertainment industry, Jeannie landed her cohosting role on The Real in 2013 alongside Adrienne Bailon, Loni Love, Tamera Mowry and Tamar Braxton. The “Listen Hunnay With Jeannie Mai” podcast host covered lifestyle topics on the show for nine years and viewers learned more about her personal life, including her marriage to estranged husband Jeezy and becoming a first-time mother to daughter Monaco.
Although The Real won an Emmy and two NAACP Awards, the daytime talk show was canceled in 2022.
“It’s hard because the show was the first of its kind. When you have a show that is by minority voices for minority voices, I gotta say, I didn’t have a show like that when I started,” she told ET that May. “So, for me getting off that show was hard because I still think we need a show like that. So, if we open doors for other shows like that to be in production, I’m excited about that. I wanna see that happen.”
