Ross was raised in Newark, New Jersey, until he was in second grade; then his family moved to Union, New Jersey, and later to Springfield, New Jersey, where he attended Jonathan Dayton High School.[10][11] He is Jewish and has a younger sister named Robyn.[2][12][13] His mother Marsha died from leukemia when he was 14 years old.[10][13][14] His father died of drug-related causes when Ross was 19 years old and attending college.[10][14] His father owned and ran Clinton Manor Catering, a business that was started by Ross's great-grandmother.[15] The business was located in Newark, and later moved to Union.[15]
Ross began performing stand-up in 1989 after attending a comedy class.[18] He appeared on A&E's An Evening at the Improv in 1994.[1] By 1995 he was performing at iconic New York clubs like the Comedy Cellar and Stand Up NY.[19] That same year he was invited by the New York Friars Club to participate in a roast of actor Steven Seagal.[16][20]
Ross became a regular at the Friars Club roasts and was given the title of "Roastmaster General".[21][22] The Friars Club's first televised event was the roast of Drew Carey that was broadcast on Comedy Central in 1998.[13][23] Ross credits a particular joke that he made at the expense of attendees Bea Arthur and Sandra Bernhard at the 1999 roast of Jerry Stiller for taking his roasting career to the next level.[24] That same year Jimmy Kimmel hired Ross as a writer on The Man Show and Ross also wrote some of the punchlines for Billy Crystal's monologue at the Oscars in 2000.[13]
In 2003 Comedy Central began producing their own celebrity roasts.[23] Ross has been a roaster at all Comedy Central roasts since the 2005 roast of Pamela Anderson.[3][16] During his Comedy Central Roast appearances Ross became known for dressing up in edgy and sometimes controversial costumes: He roasted Charlie Sheen dressed as Muammar Gaddafi; he roasted Rob Lowe dressed as Purple Rain-era Prince on an episode that aired five months after the musician's death; he roasted Roseanne Barr dressed as the late football coach Joe Paterno during the height of the Penn State child sex abuse scandal; he also roasted James Franco wearing cornrows and a neck tattoo in reference to Franco's character in the 2012 film Spring Breakers.[13][25]
Ross has taken part in several USO tours and has performed stand-up comedy at US military bases in Afghanistan, Guantanamo Bay and Iraq.[13] Ross first traveled to Iraq in 2003 as part of a comedy tour hosted by Drew Carey.[26] In 2005 Ross released the film Patriot Act: A Jeffrey Ross Home Movie, which he both produced and directed and which documented his experiences on the Iraq tour.[26] That same year the film won the prize for Best Film at the Comedia film festival, a comedy film festival held annually in Montreal as part of the Just for Laughs comedy festival.[9] In 2006 the film was shown on Showtime and also screened at that year's South by Southwest Film Festival.[26][27] In 2017 the USO made Ross the Ambassador of Veterans Outreach for the Artists & Athletes Alliance.[28]
Ross published his first book, I Only Roast the Ones I Love: Busting Balls Without Burning Bridges, in 2009.[28][29] The book recounts his journey to becoming Roastmaster General and includes tips on writing roast jokes and how to put on a roast.[28][29]
In 2015, Ross starred in the Comedy Central special Jeff Ross Roasts Criminals: Live from Brazos County Jail, where he performed stand-up comedy for male and female convicts in Brazos County, Texas.[31][32] The following year he released Jeff Ross Roasts Cops where he performed for members of the Boston Police Department.[3][28]
Ross and comedian Brian Moses launched Jeff Ross Presents Roast Battle on Comedy Central in 2016.[31] The show consists of comedians competing in one-on-one roast battles where the winners are decided by Ross and a panel of guest judges.[31][32] Ross also appeared as a battler in final episode of the show's third season in a battle with NBA player Blake Griffin.[33]
He was the guest on the debut episode of the WTF with Marc Maron podcast in 2009 and also appeared on the podcast's 800th episode in 2017.[28]
Ross appeared in the third tournament of Celebrity Poker in 2004, but lost in his first match.[21] He was also a competitor on the seventh season of Dancing with the Stars that aired in 2008.[21] During rehearsal for their first dance, his dancing partner Edyta Śliwińska accidentally poked Ross in the eye, causing a scratched cornea.[21] Against medical advice, Ross continued the competition, but the couple were the first to be eliminated.[21]
In 2019, he appeared on an episode of Crank Yankers as himself.
Personal life
Ross credits his tough upbringing in New Jersey for helping him develop his talent for insult comedy, which he says he developed as a defense mechanism.[20][46] Ross stated in an interview with The Atlanta Constitution: "Everyone in my family was good at [roasting]. I had to quickly learn not just to take a joke but to give it back. My uncle Murray was the first to bust my chops. We called him Mean Murray."[46]
In June 2020, an allegation that Ross had engaged in a sexual relationship with a 15-year-old when he was 34 was published in the media; his accuser, Jessica Radtke, had also posted these allegations on her Facebook page in 2019.[47][48] Ross denied the allegations.[49][50] In November 2020, Ross filed a defamation suit in the New York State Supreme Court, in which multiple named witnesses (including Radtke's father) refuted her allegations; Radtke was accused of extorting Ross for "significant sums of money".[51] He dropped the case in March 2023.[52]
^Johnson, Steve (October 13, 2009). "Mr. Cruel". Chicago Tribune. Chicago, Illinois, United States. Retrieved May 1, 2019. He got to this place, as the new millennium Don Rickles, partly thanks to an insult-loving uncle, partly as a result of working in his dad's New Jersey catering business, where a multicultural work crew loved to bust on the boss' son.
^ abcConsidine, Bob (September 29, 2011). "Take 5 with Jeffrey Ross". The Star-Ledger. Newark, New Jersey, United States. Archived from the original on May 2, 2019. Retrieved May 1, 2019. I grew up in Newark, Union and Springfield. ... So we lived in Newark until I was in second grade, then we jumped to Union and then to Springfield, where I kind of stayed for a while. I lost my Mom when I was 14 and my Dad when I was 19...
^Wootliff, Raoul (January 10, 2018). "Chris Rock bares soul in roaringly honest Israel debut". Retrieved May 1, 2019. Veteran roaster Jeff Ross..repeatedly told the audience of his Jewish roots, noting, "I love my people and you are my people..."
^ abTerry, Gross (September 13, 2016). "Having Thick Skin Is A 'Survival Technique,' Says Comic Jeff Ross". Fresh Air. Event occurs at 29:05. NPR. Retrieved April 21, 2019. Terry Gross: "So you mention your parents. Your mother died when you were 14. Did she have cancer?" Jeff Ross: "She had leukemia." TG: "Then your father died when you were 19; that was sudden and unexpected." JR: "Yeah, doin' stupid stuff. Drugs." TG: "Oh really?" JR: "He was a single guy starting to make money in the 80s. I was away at college, my sister was a senior in highschool."
^ abTerry, Gross (September 13, 2016). "Having Thick Skin Is A 'Survival Technique,' Says Comic Jeff Ross". Fresh Air. Event occurs at 27:23. NPR. Retrieved April 21, 2019. My great grandmother Rose, she started it a long time ago in the 50s...It was in Newark, New Jersey, and then later in Union, New Jersey. It was called Clinton Manor Catering. Judy Bloom wrote about it in her book "Wifey".
^Bliss, Jessica (March 13, 2012). "Roastmaster General takes aim at Nashville". The Tennessean. Nashville, Tennessee, United States. p. 3A. Retrieved May 1, 2019 – via Newspapers.com. The roastmaster designation is a title bestowed upon him by the New York Friar's Club, a private fraternity in New York City made up most of famous comedians.
^Holtzclaw, Mike (June 18, 2015). "The host with the 'roasts': Comedian Jeff Ross brings merciless style of stand-up to The Norva". Daily Press (Virginia). Newport News, Virginia, United States. Retrieved May 1, 2019. It was in that role, at a 1999 roast of Jerry Stiller, that Ross got off an unspeakably vulgar zinger that simultaneously nailed both Sandra Bernhard and Bea Arthur (though Ross notes that it was Arthur's wordless "stink-eye" reaction that elevated the joke to comedic genius). To this day, he says, that is the joke that truly took his career to a higher level, the one that people still repeat to him.
^"@realjeffreyross". Twitter. April 24, 2019. Retrieved May 1, 2019. I play Pile Of Twigs and @pattonoswalt plays a unicorn named Happy on tonight's episode of "Happy". Watch and enjoy 10pm on @SYFY if you're a dark fucked up person. #SeeHappy @happysyfy
^ abHo, Rodney (July 18, 2014). "'Roastmaster General' born to insult". The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. Dunwoody, Georgia, United States. p. D4. Retrieved May 1, 2019 – via Newspapers.com. Ross said his ability to insult people goes back to childhood in New Jersey. 'Everyone in my family was good at it. I had to quickly learn not just to take a joke but to give it back. My uncle Murray was the first to bust my chops. We called him mean Murray. He'd make fun of my braces, my buck teeth. I worked at my parent's catering hall and was the boss' son. He would give me a lot of crap.'
^ abcdef"Jeffrey Ross (visual voices guide)". Behind The Voice Actors. Retrieved November 21, 2023. A green check mark indicates that a role has been confirmed using a screenshot (or collage of screenshots) of a title's list of voice actors and their respective characters found in its credits or other reliable sources of information.
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