June Sarpong
| June Sarpong | |
|---|---|
| Born |
31 May 1977 London, England, UK |
| Occupation | Presenter |
June Sarpong, MBE (born 31 May 1977) is an English television presenter of Ghanaian descent.
Early life and education
Sarpong was born in London, to Ghanaian parents. She was educated at Connaught School for Girls in Leytonstone and Sir George Monoux College in Walthamstow.
Career
She began her media career with Kiss 100 and later became an MTV UK & Ireland presenter (MTV Dance Floor Chart). As one of the female faces of Channel 4’s daytime teen-aimed strand T4 for the last nine years, she interviewed Tony Blair for a T4 special, When Tony Met June, which aired in January 2005. She also runs her own production company, Lipgloss Productions. Projects in development include a sitcom and a programme on climate change.
In recent years, Sarpong has presented other series, including Your Face Or Mine?, a game show co-hosted with Jimmy Carr for E4; Dirty Laundry, an urban talk-show that was an original idea of Sarpong's; Playing It Straight, a dating game-show filmed in Mexico for Channel 4, and Sarpong has presented the Smash Hits Poll Winners Party and the Party In The Park. Sarpong is a regular at the MOBO Awards and has presented them for three years in a row. She has also appeared on BBC Television's Question Time, 8 out of 10 Cats, and Have I Got News for You. She also has appeared on the programme Never Mind the Buzzcocks and introduced reports on youth culture for This Week. In 2006 she hosted ITV2's WAGs Boutique. Sarpong has also appeared on the third series of Bo' Selecta!.
Sarpong appeared in the Extra's Special Series Finale with Ricky Gervais (2007). On 22 October 2007 it was announced that she had quit her presenter role on T4 after nine years. Her last show was broadcast on 23 December 2007.
Sarpong made a guest appearance in Little Miss Jocelyn series 2, episode 3. (2008) On 6 November 2009 she hosted the Sky 1 programme Michael Jackson: The Search for...His Spirit in which she went around locations pertinent to his life looking for signs of his ghost. The programme was broadcast as part of a double bill, the second part comprising a live séance conducted by Derek Acorah for which Sarpong again played host.
Sarpong currently works as an interviewer on Jesse Ventura's Conspiracy Theory show broadcast on TruTV.[1][2]
Charity work
Sarpong serves as a director on the board of the Lunchbox Fund, a non-profit organisation that provides a daily meal to students of township schools in Soweto, South Africa. She is also an ambassador for the Prince's Trust, and campaigns for the Make Poverty History movement. In April 2005 she visited Ghana to make a film for Make Poverty History. She also hosted the major Make Poverty History event in London’s Trafalgar Square in summer 2005 on behalf of Nelson Mandela and Bob Geldof.
On 7 July 2007 Sarpong presented at the UK leg of Live Earth at Wembley Stadium, London.
Relations
Her brother is Sam Sarpong, an actor and host of MTV's Yo Momma.
Honours
At the age of twenty-nine and after six years as a broadcaster, she was awarded an MBE in the 2007 New Year Honours List for "services to broadcasting and charity".
Online work
On 8 July 2008, Sarpong launched a new venture called Politics & the City, an attempt to bring politics and news to a new market. The site received a great deal of media coverage and some criticism.
In March 2011 Lipgloss Productions registered huffingtonpost.co.uk, sparking speculation that she will helm the UK arm of the popular website.[3]
References
External links
- June Sarpong's Website
- Politics & The City
- Desktop News Delivery
- June Sarpong at the Internet Movie Database