Jameela Jamil

Jameela Alia Jamil (born 25 February 1986) is a British actress, activist, podcaster, and television host and judge. She began her career on Channel 4, where she hosted a pop culture series in the T4 strand from 2009 until 2012. She then became the radio host of The Official Chart, and co-hosted The Official Chart Update alongside Scott Mills on BBC Radio 1. She was the first regular solo female presenter of the BBC Radio 1 chart show. In 2016, Jamil relocated to the United States. She played Tahani Al-Jamil in the NBC fantasy comedy series The Good Place. She also hosts the TBS late-night game show The Misery Index and is one of the judges of voguing reality competition show Legendary. In 2022, Jamil worked on two superhero projects: the animated film DC League of Super-Pets and the Marvel Cinematic Universe television series She-Hulk: Attorney at Law. Early life Jamil was born on 25 February 1986 in Hampstead, London, to a Pakistani father, Ali Jamil, and a British Pakistani mother, Shireen Jamil. She said in 2015 that, as a child, she faced numerous health problems, being born with congenital hearing loss and labyrinthitis, which she has had several operations to correct, and that she had 70% hearing ability in her left ear and 50% in her right ear. At nine, she was diagnosed with hypermobile Ehlers-Danlos syndrome, a genetic disorder affecting the connective tissue in the body, and at 12 with coeliac disease. She experienced mercury poisoning at 21, which she attributes to mercury leakage from amalgam teeth fillings, exacerbated by their improper removal, which damaged her digestive system. As a teenager she suffered from anorexia nervosa, and describes not eating a full meal between the ages of 14 and 17. She believes her eating disorder developed due to societal pressure, including magazine articles selling weight loss products. At age 17, she was struck by a car while running from a bee, breaking several bones and damaging her spine. She describes being told that she might never walk again, but slowly recovering after steroid treatment and physiotherapy, using a Zimmer frame to start walking. She credits the car accident for pushing her toward recovery from anorexia, saying it changed her relationship with her body. She attended Queen's College School in London but was unable to complete her A-Levels, citing the accident. She has said she then taught English to foreign students at the Callan School of English in London for two years.