Dave Holmes

With credits as diverse as MTV video jockey, Esquire editor-at-large, comedy actor, memoirist and podcaster, Dave Holmes is a pop culture renaissance man. Holmes first came to prominence in 1998 as the runner-up in the original series of MTV’s Wanna Be a VJ, where an extensive knowledge of music trivia distinguished him from his competitors. Despite losing the competition, Holmes was subsequently hired to host a string of MTV shows, including Video Clichés, 120 Minutes, a reunion special of Real World and the popular Say What? Karaoke. Holmes parted ways with the network in 2002, the same year in which he publicly came out as gay in Out magazine.

Holmes spent 10 seasons as the host of FX’s weekly movie night DVD on TV and in 2005 hosted the CBS reality comedy series Fire Me Please. 2007 saw Holmes co-host coverage of the Live Earth concerts on Bravo with actress and writer Karen Duffy. He has appeared on multiple talking-head shows on networks including E! and VH1 and had a recurring role as Leslie Frost on the hit Comedy Central series Reno 911! In 2010, Holmes contributed a video to the It Gets Better project, fronted by prominent gay rights activist Dan Savage.

Since 2015, Holmes has been an editor-at-large for Esquire magazine and in 2016 published Party of One: A Memoir in 21 Songs with Penguin Random House. The book was selected as one of NPR’s Great Reads of 2016 and a Goodreads Choice Award nominee, as well as garnering praise from top comedians Margaret Cho and Andy Cohen and numerous major publications including the Washington Post. Holmes is the long-running co-host of both the LGBTQ-themed podcast Homophilia on Earwolf and the live comedy game show The Friday Forty, alongside The Walking Dead executive producer Scott M. Gimple.