Tavis Smiley Biography

Tavis Smiley is an American talk show host and author. He was born in Gulfport, Mississippi. He became a radio commentator in 1991 and, starting in 1996, he hosted the talk show BET Talk (later renamed BET Tonight) on Black Entertainment Television (BET). After he sold an exclusive interview of Sara Jane Olson to ABC News in 2001, BET declined to renew his contract that year. He worked during the late 1980s as an aide to Tom Bradley, the mayor of Los Angeles.

Smiley then began hosting The Tavis Smiley Show on National Public Radio (NPR) (2002–04) and used to host Tavis Smiley on the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) on weekdays and The Tavis Smiley Show on Public Radio International (PRI).

Tavis Smiley Age

Tavis was born in Gulfport, Mississippi, U.S. on September 13, 1964. As of 2018, he is  54 years of age.

Tavis Smiley Family

Smiley was born in Gulfport, Mississippi, on September 13, 1964. The son of Joyce Marie Roberts, a single woman who first became pregnant at age 18. On his second birthday September 13, 1966, his mother married Emory Garnell Smiley, a non-commissioned officer in the U.S. Air Force. A few years later he learned the identity of his biological father, whom he identifies in his autobiography, What I Know For Sure: My Story of Growing Up in America, only as “T”.

Smiley’s family soon moved to Indiana when his stepfather was transferred to Grissom Air Force Base near Peru, Indiana. His mother was a very religious person, and the family attended the local New Bethel Tabernacle Church, part of the Pentecostal Assemblies of the World. The Smiley children were forbidden from listening to secular music at home or going to the movie theater and could watch only television shows their parents felt were family-friendly.

At age 13, Smiley became interested in politics after attending a fundraiser for U.S. Senator Birch Bayh. He attended the Maconaquah High School in Bunker Hill, Indiana, a school that he described as “98 percent white”. He was active in the student council and the debate team, even though his parents were “skeptical of all non-church extracurricular activities”.

He enrolled in Indiana University in 1982 and he later graduated with a B.A., in public affairs in  2003.

Tavis Smiley Wife

There is no information about his dating life or his previous relationships.

Tavis Smiley Height

He has a height of around 1.85 m.

Tavis Smiley Career

College and political career

Smiley entered the university with only $50 and a small suitcase because his parents refused to complete financial aid papers. Administrators let Smiley complete the paperwork to become a full-time student. The summer after his first year, he worked, attended summer classes, and lived off campus with Indiana Hoosiers men’s basketball players, then being coached by Bob Knight.

During his second year, he was accepted into the Kappa Alpha Psi fraternity. He became business manager of his dormitory, a member of the student senate, and director of minority affairs. After his friend Denver Smith was killed by Indiana police officers who claimed to have acted in self-defense, he helped lead protests to defend Smith.

Smiley believed his friend had been wrongfully killed. Those protests led him to a work-study internship at the office of Bloomington Mayor Tomilea Allison, where he was paid $5 an hour. He wrote letters to local residents, researched for Mayor Allison, and helped write position papers on local issues.

In his autobiography, he says that a deputy mayor caught him systematically adding extra hours to his time sheets, illegal behavior that could have seen him charged with a felony and expelled from college, but instead of pressing charges, Mayor Allison allowed him to work all of the hours for which he had already been paid, and did not tell other people what he had done.

Smiley twice considered quitting college, first during his junior year, and then after finishing his internship with Mayor Bradley. Bradley persuaded Smiley to return to college. He took the LSAT twice because, he thought he “didn’t do great the first time,” and he “did a little better” the second time; he intended to apply to Harvard Law School.

Instead, he did not graduate from college at all, because he failed a required course in his senior year, and “did poorly in several other courses,” which meant he could not complete his degree on time; rather than stay for an extra term, he chose to leave IU and move to Los Angeles, where he had been promised a job.

Following a hiring freeze by the government of Los Angeles, he served as an aide to Mayor Bradley until 1990. A 1988 article in the Los Angeles Times identified Smiley as “a Bradley administrative assistant who works in South Los Angeles”. In 2003, he officially received his degree from Indiana University in public affairs.

Radio and television career

In 1991, campaigning for a seat on the Los Angeles City Council against incumbent Ruth Galanter, he finished fourth among 15 candidates. He became a radio commentator, broadcasting one-minute daily radio segments called The Smiley Report on KGFJ radio.

Smiley with Ruben Navarrette Jr., co-hosted a local talk show in Los Angeles where his strongly held views on race and politics, combined with his arguments regarding the impact of institutional racism and substandard educational and economic opportunities for inner-city black youth, earned him attention at the Los Angeles Times.

His commentaries focused on local and national current-affairs issues affecting the African-American community. For six months, he worked on a community news program on a local cable network and spent six more months working on television in Montreal, Quebec, Canada.

In 1996, he became a frequent commentator to the Tom Joyner Morning Show, a nationally syndicated radio show broadcast on black and urban stations in the United States. He developed a friendship with host Joyner.

Launch of TV talk show BET Talk/ BET Tonight

Also in 1996 Smiley began hosting and executive producing BET Tonight (originally BET Talk when it first premiered). Its a public affairs discussion show on the Black Entertainment Television (BET) network. He interviewed major political figures and celebrities and discussed topics ranging from racial profiling and police brutality to R&B music and Hollywood gossip.

Firing at BET Tonight

Until 2001, Smiley hosted BET Tonight. In a controversial move, the network announced that his contract would not be renewed. Robert L. Johnson, the founder of BET, defended the decision, stating that Smiley had been fired because he had sold an exclusive interview to ABC News without first offering the story to BET, even though his contract with BET did not require him to do so.

This sparked an angry response from Joyner, who sought to rally his radio audience to protest BET’s decision. Smiley ultimately sold the interview to rival network ABC, he said, only after CBS passed on the interview, and suggested that his firing was payback for the publicity he gained as a result of providing an exclusive interview to ABC. Ultimately BET and Viacom did not reverse their decision to terminate Smiley’s contract.

Move to C-SPAN

In 2000 they began hosting annual town hall meetings called “The State of the Black Union,” which were aired live on the C-SPANcable television network. Each of these town hall meetings focused on a specific topic affecting the African-American community. Featuring a panel of African-American leaders, educators, and professionals, assembled before an audience, to discuss problems related to the forum’s topic, as well as potential solutions.

He also used his commentator status on Joyner’s radio show to launch several advocacy campaigns to highlight discriminatory practices in the media and government and to rally support for causes such as the awarding of a Congressional Gold Medal to civil rights icon Rosa Parks. Smiley also began building a national reputation as a political commentator with numerous appearances on political discussion shows on MSNBC, ABC, and CNN.

The Covenant with Black America

In March 2006, The Smiley Group and Third World Press published The Covenant with Black America. Its a collection of essays by black scholars and professionals edited by Smiley. The book covers topics ranging from education to healthcare and was a New York Times Bestseller.

Sexual misconduct allegations

Smiley is accused of having “had sexual relationships with multiple staff members, some of whom reportedly felt that their relationship with the TV host was connected to their employment status.”

On December 13, 2017, PBS indefinitely suspended him. PBS issued a statement saying that it had hired a law firm to conduct an investigation “immediately after learning of troubling allegations regarding Mr. Smiley” and that this investigation “uncovered multiple, credible allegations of conduct that is inconsistent with the values and standards of PBS.”

It was reported by Variety that Smiley was let go due to multiple relationships with subordinates, some of whom felt the relationship was connected to their employment. It was also alleged that Smiley created an environment that was “verbally abusive and threatening.”His suspension followed PBS’ decision to part ways with Charlie Rose.

On December 14, he described the PBS investigation as “biased and sloppy” and said he would fight the allegations and the damage to his reputation. He released a statement saying, “I have the utmost respect for women and celebrate the courage of those who have come forth to tell their truth.” “To be clear, I have never groped, coerced or exposed myself inappropriately to any workplace colleague in my entire broadcast career, covering six networks over 30 years”, he also said.

Soon after the suspension, Smiley went on a country-wide tour to defend his innocence while also supporting the #MeToo movement and denouncing workplace harassment.

Tavis Smiley Net Worth

Smiley is an American talk show host, author, liberal political commentator, entrepreneur, advocate and philanthropist who has an estimated net worth of $10 million dollars.

Tavis Smiley Books

Bibliography

• Just a Thought: The Smiley Report (ISBN 0-9636952-3-1)
• Doing What’s Right: How to Fight for What You Believe—And Make a Difference (ISBN 0-385-49931-0)
• Hard Left (ISBN 0-385-48404-6)
• Keeping the Faith: Stories of Love, Courage, Healing, and Hope from Black America (ISBN 0-385-72169-2)
• How to Make Black America Better: Leading African Americans Speak Out (ISBN 0-385-72087-4)
• On Air:The Best of Tavis Smiley on the Tom Joyner Morning Show (ISBN 1-890194-33-6)
• The Covenant with Black America (ISBN 0-88378-277-4)
• What I Know for Sure: My Story of Growing Up in America (ISBN 978-0-385-50516-1; ISBN 0-385-50516-7)
• Accountable: Making America As Good As Its Promise (ISBN 978-1-4391-0004-2)
• Fail Up (ISBN 1-4019-3390-4)
• The Rich and the Rest of Us: A Poverty Manifesto (with Cornel West) (ISBN 1-4019-4063-3)
• Death of a King: The Real Story of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s Final Year (ISBN 0-316-33276-3; ISBN 978-0-316-33276-7)
• My Journey with Maya (with David Ritz) (ISBN 978-1-4789-5829-1)
• Covenant With Black America: Ten Years Later (ISBN 978-1-4019-5149-8)
• 50 For Your Future: Lessons From Down the Road (ISBN 978-1-4019-4839-9)
• Before You Judge Me: The Triumph and Tragedy of Michael Jackson’s Last Days (with David Ritz) (ISBN 0-316-25909-8; ISBN 978-0-316-25909-5)
• The Covenant with Black America – Ten Years Later (ISBN 1-40195-149-X)