June Sarpong

June Sarpong
OBE
Born (1977-05-31) 31 May 1977
London, England

June Sarpong OBE (born 31 May 1977) is a British television presenter and broadcaster 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, Channel 4's 8 out of 10 Cats, and BBC's 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 Extras 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 Sky1 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 worked as an interviewer on Jesse Ventura's Conspiracy Theory show broadcast on TruTV.[1][2] On the first episode she made the claim that the 2004 Tsunami was not preceded by "pretremors or any warning". Journalist Peter Hadfield criticized that this claim is unsupported by seismological records and scientific papers.[3]

After the #WheresJuneSarpongGone campaign begun by Celebrity Juice on 19 March, Loose Women welcomed June to the panel as a guest panellist on 23 March. Following her first appearance back on our screens, June appeared on Celebrity Juice, in Fearne's team, on 2 April.

She again appeared on Loose Women on 16 April, 17 April, 1 May and 15 May. Since appearing on Loose Women again on 29 May, Sarpong is now a regular panelist and she anchored one episode of the show as well.

Advocacy

Sarpong serves as a director on the board of the Lunchbox Fund, a non-profit organisation that provides a daily meal to pupils 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.

In August 2014, Sarpong was one of 200 public figures who were signatories to a letter to The Guardian opposing Scottish independence in the run-up to September's referendum on that issue.[4]

In October 2015, she joined the board of the Britain Stronger in Europe campaign, which is lobbying for the United Kingdom to remain in the European Union.[5]

Personal life

Her brother was the late Sam Sarpong, who was an actor and host of MTV's Yo Momma. Sam Sarpong died on 26 October 2015 at the age of 40 after jumping off a bridge in Pasadena, California.[6]

Honours

At the age of twenty-nine and after six years as a broadcaster, June was appointed an Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in the 2007 New Year Honours List for "services to Urban Music".

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 would helm the UK arm of the popular website.[7]

References

  1. ↑ June's Website
  2. ↑ "Disinformation Interviews June Sarpong of ‘Conspiracy Theory’", 7 February 2010.
  3. ↑ Conspiracy theories conspiracy. Youtube.com, 18 June 2013
  4. ↑ "Celebrities' open letter to Scotland – full text and list of signatories | Politics". theguardian.com. 7 August 2014. Retrieved 26 August 2014.
  5. ↑ "EU referendum: Lord Rose says it is 'patriotic' to remain in the EU". BBC Online. 12 October 2015. Retrieved 12 October 2015.
  6. ↑ "Sam Sarpong Dies: Tommy Hilfiger Model, Yo Momma Host, Actor Dead of Apparent Suicide at 40". Us Weekly. 28 October 2015. Retrieved 28 October 2015.
  7. ↑ Domain ownership for huffingtonpost.co.uk

External links

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