Maria Menounos American Actress From Medford

Early life

Maria Menounos was born on 8 June 1978 in Medford, a suburb of Boston, Massachusetts, to Greek immigrant parents. She graduated from Medford High School in 1996. Her first public exposure came through pageants, which she entered from 1995; in 1996 she won the title of Miss Massachusetts Teen USA and went on to compete at Miss Teen USA. She later finished as first runner-up for Miss Massachusetts USA 2000. She studied at Emerson College, took part in the student group Emerson Independent Video and graduated in 2000.

Career

While in her final year at Emerson, Menounos reported for Channel One News. Her assignments included travelling to El Salvador after the 2001 earthquakes, interviewing NATO aircrew aboard an E-3 AWACS plane and speaking with President George W. Bush. Entertainment Tonight hired her as a correspondent in 2002 to cover film, music and fashion. She left in 2005 to focus on acting, then joined Access Hollywood that autumn, and she also co-hosted some episodes of the Today show in 2006 and 2007.

Her acting credits begin with Sabrina the Teenage Witch in 1996. She later had recurring parts in Without a Trace and One Tree Hill, appeared in a 2006 episode of Scrubs, and played a nurse in the 2005 film Fantastic Four. Other film roles include Kickin' It Old Skool (2007), Tropic Thunder (2008), Adventures of Serial Buddies (2011), The Right Kind of Wrong (2013) and Entourage (2015). She acted in and produced Adventures of Serial Buddies, and she directed Longtime Listener, which was an official selection of the 2006 Tribeca Film Festival. She also produced the independent fairytale film In the Land of Merry Misfits, which was shot while she was a student, and personally funded its restoration. It premiered at Tribeca in 2007.

In 2006 she co-presented the Eurovision Song Contest in Athens with the singer Sakis Rouvas. She hosted the Planet Green series Hollywood Green in 2008, and between 2009 and 2012 she hosted several reunion specials of MTV's The Real World and The Challenge. In August 2011 she joined Extra as co-host with Mario Lopez, staying until May 2014. She took part in the 14th season of Dancing with the Stars, partnered with Derek Hough, and placed fourth. Her interview series Conversations with Maria Menounos began in 2013, and the reality series Chasing Maria Menounos premiered on Oxygen in March 2014.

After leaving Extra she signed a multi-year deal with E! Entertainment, and in 2015 she was named co-anchor of E! News, a post she left in July 2017. She hosted a daily SiriusXM radio programme from 2015 and has hosted the cinema pre-show Noovie since its launch in 2017. In 2017 she also started the podcast Heal Squad, focused on health and wellbeing. In 2021 she hosted reunion shows for The Challenge, and in 2025 she appeared in the Lifetime short film I'll Be Home for Margarita Day.

She co-founded the online entertainment network AfterBuzz TV, where she serves as chief executive.

Recognition

Extra won the Daytime Emmy Award for Outstanding Entertainment News Program in 2014, during her time as co-host. On 15 September 2026 she received the CineHealth Lifetime Achievement Award for her public health advocacy.

Public roles

Menounos has been involved with WWE since 2009, when she guest hosted Raw and made her in-ring debut in a six-woman tag match. She teamed with Kelly Kelly to win a tag match at WrestleMania XXVIII on 1 April 2012. On 6 April 2013 she inducted Bob Backlund into the WWE Hall of Fame, and she has served as a WWE ambassador since 2013. She hosted the Hall of Fame red carpet pre-show for six consecutive years, from 2014 to 2019, and was special guest ring announcer for the first women's Royal Rumble match on 28 January 2018.

Her charitable work includes founding Take Action Hollywood! and creating the Cosmo Girl Cup, an annual award for teenage groups working for positive change in their communities.

Personal life

Menounos announced her dual citizenship of the United States and Greece in May 2023. She married Keven Undergaro in a ceremony in Times Square at the start of 2017, followed by a Greek Orthodox wedding in 2018 in her father's home village of Akovos.