Ronny Chieng


Ronny Xin Yi Chieng is a Malaysian comedian and actor. Chieng is currently a senior correspondent on The Daily Show on Comedy Central and creator and star of the sitcom which premiered on ABC and Comedy Central Asia in 2017.

Early life and education

Chieng was born in Johor Bahru, Malaysia, to a Malaysian Chinese family. He grew up in both Singapore and Manchester, New Hampshire, in the United States.
When he lived in Johor Bahru, he would commute to Fungchu Primary School in neighboring Singapore.
He later attended Pioneer Secondary School, and Pioneer Junior College in Singapore, and the University of Melbourne in Australia, where he lived at Trinity College while studying at the University of Melbourne where he graduated in 2009 with Bachelor of Commerce and Bachelor of Laws degrees. He also obtained a Graduate Diploma in Legal Practice from the Australian National University in 2012.

Career

Chieng performed with Trevor Noah in 2013 at a comedy festival in Melbourne, Australia. Two years later, he was asked to audition for the correspondent role on The Daily Show, which Noah hosted.
In July 2016, he was named one of 10 Comics to Watch by Variety.

Viral response to ''Fox News'' segment

In October 2016, Chieng appeared on The Daily Show to give his response to a Jesse Watters Fox News segment deemed by many as racist. Chieng aired an expletive-laden criticism of the conservative network's segment. He also revisited New York City's Chinatown, where Watters had mocked residents, and conducted more respectful interviews in Mandarin and Cantonese. The video went viral and received coverage in the Washington Post and Slate.

Projects

In 2016, Chieng co-wrote and starred in the pilot of a sitcom called , based on his own experience as a Malaysian student in Australia. It was developed into a series for Comedy Central in America and ABC TV in Australia and screened in June 2017.
In 2018, he made his American feature debut with the film Crazy Rich Asians, directed by Jon M. Chu and starring Constance Wu and Henry Golding.
In 2019, Netflix started streaming his stand-up special, "Asian Comedian Destroys America!", where he jokes about consumerism, racism and immigrants.

Personal life

In his youth, Chieng was a Singapore Sea Scout.
Despite living in Australia for a decade, he does not have citizenship or permanent residency status in Australia.
Chieng has been living in New York City since 2015. He married Vietnamese-Australian Hannah Pham on September 9, 2016. In 2018, Chieng joked that he was sinophobic on the Daily Show, but later clarified in an interview that he was "100 per cent not scared of dogs".

Filmography

Awards

[Melbourne International Comedy Festival]

[Sydney Comedy Festival]

[ARIA Music Awards]