Ziwe Fumudoh

In 2013, Fumudoh worked as a summer intern at Comedy Central on shows including The Daily Show and The Colbert Report.[13][18][5] During her senior year of college, she interned as a writer for The Onion and took improv classes at the iO theater.[19] At The Onion she worked in video, research, and contributing features.[20] From 2015 to 2020, she wrote for publications including The Riveter Magazine; Reductress; The Daily Dot;[21] Into The Gloss, where she wrote a column called "Operation Goo Goo Gah Gah";[22] Vulture, where she wrote television recaps;[23] and The New Yorker.

After graduation, she worked at Lorne Michaels's Above Average Productions.[10] Her first television job was as a screenwriter on The Rundown with Robin Thede.[5][18][19]

In 2017, Fumudoh created Baited with Ziwe, a show on YouTube that featured her "baiting" her white friends into making unwitting racial faux pas.[5] In an interview, Fumudoh later said "I love that Baited allows viewers to laugh about race while still acknowledging its complexity. Of all projects I worked on, it's definitely one of my favorites."[24] In the same interview, she said that she got the inspiration for the show from asking her Caucasian coworkers what questions they would be uncomfortable to answer on camera.[24]

During the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, Fumudoh moved the show from YouTube to Instagram Live with new celebrity guests each week.[25] Guests included Caroline Calloway, Alison Roman, Alyssa Milano, and Rose McGowan.[26] She stated that her show's goals were to facilitate discussions about race while entertaining people and critiquing the system.[6][27][28] Baited with Ziwe would serve as a successful template for her talk show Ziwe.

In 2018, Fumudoh appeared frequently in Pop Show, a live show she created at Brooklyn's Union Hall in which she performs original pop songs.[18][29][30] That same year, Fumudoh co-hosted Hysteria, a podcast from Crooked Media.[6]

From 2018 to 2020, Fumudoh was a writer on the TV show Desus and Mero.[31][32] A Forbes reviewer wrote that she had the "confidence of an old comedy pro".[18] During that time, Fumudoh joined the cast of Our Cartoon President as the voice of Kamala Harris. She also wrote the season 3 episode "Senate Control".[33]

In October 2020, it was announced that Fumudoh would work with Showtime on a new variety show, Ziwe.[34] The first season had six episodes and featured sketches, musical numbers, and interviews with celebrity guests including: Fran Libowitz, Bowen Yang, Phoebe Bridgers, Julio Torres, and Stacey Abrams.[35] Fumudoh hosted, wrote for, and produced the show.[36] Fumudoh collaborated with costume designer Pamela Shepard-Hill on her costumes.[7]

The second season was heavily teased prior to broadcast by mainstream publications including: Variety,[37] Forbes,[38] and Deadline.[39] Season 2 of Ziwe built upon the successful format of Season 1, expanding to 12 episodes.[35] Celebrity guests included: Ilana Glazer, Mia Khalifa, Emily Ratajkowski, Katya Zamolodchikova, Julia Fox, Bob the Drag Queen, Joel Kim Booster, Amber Riley, Michael Che, and Hannibal Burress, among others.[35] The hyper virality of clips from Season 2 of Ziwe on TikTok cemented Fumudoh in the cultural zeitgeist of Millenials and Gen Z, achieving Fumudoh's dream of becoming "The Ellen Degeneres of race relations."[3] In April 2023, Showtime chose not to renew the series for a third season.[40] In doing so, Showtime left the late-night talk show genre altogether.[41]

In 2021, Fumudoh wrote for the television series Dickinson and appeared in two episodes as Sojourner Truth.[42] That same year, she played Sophie Iwobi, a comedic commentator on a late-night show resembling Ziwe, in one episode of the third season of Succession. The character was tailored to more closely resemble Fumudoh after she was cast.[43]

In September 2023, Fumudoh was part of the "My Wings, My Way" campaign for Victoria's Secret.[44]

In August 2020, it was announced that Fumudoh was writing a collection of humorous essays, The Book of Ziwe, for Abrams Books.[45] The book was later retitled Black Friend and was released on October 24, 2023.[9]To promote the book, Fumudoh went on a cross country tour between October 23 and November 8, 2023 visiting 8 cities, including: Los Angeles, San Francisco, Denver, Minneapolis, Chicago, Atlanta, Philadelphia, and Washington D.C.[46]

On December 18, 2023, Fumudoh interviewed the scandal-plagued former U.S. House representative George Santos on her YouTube channel.[47] The interview, laden with Fumudoh's trademark gotcha! style, was widely covered in political news outlets and Hollywood Entertainment columns alike, including: New York Times,[48] Washington Post,[49] CNN,[50] CBS News,[51] The Hill,[52] Mother Jones,[53] LA Times,[54] Axios,[55] Variety,[56] The Daily Beast,[57] Buzzfeed,[58] Business Insider,[59] The Advocate,[60] among others.