Rickey Smiley is a comedian, actor, and syndicated radio/television host who was born on August 10, 1968, in Birmingham, Alabama, to Carolita Smiley Lester and James Smiley, who died when he was seven years old. Karon Katiea Smiley-Dennis is Rickey’s only sibling.
Smiley graduated from Woodlawn High School, a four-year magnet high school in Birmingham, in 1986. After that, he enrolled at Tuskegee University but dropped out a year later. He then enrolled at Alabama State University in 1989, where he earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in Music in 1992. In 1993, Smiley joined Omega Psi Phi Fraternity’s Psi Rho Graduate Chapter in Holly Springs, Mississippi.
Smiley, who was just starting out in professional comedy, was booed at the Apollo Theater in Harlem, New York, in 1994. The “boo” was not for his performance, but because he was introduced as being from Alabama. The results favored him, especially when he disguised his voice to conduct prank conversation calls and church announcements from a fictional character he created named Miss Bernice Jenkins.
Smiley, a talented pianist, received a five-year contract with Home Box Office (HBO) in 2000. In addition, in 2002, he played Santa in Ice Cube’s film Friday After Next. Smiley signed a contract with Syndicated One in 2008 for the nationwide The Rickey Smiley Morning Show, which quickly became one of the nation’s fastest-growing radio programs, reaching more than 10 million listeners daily. In 2004, he was awarded the Platinum Mic Viewer’s Choice Award at the BET Comedy Awards in Pasadena, California.
Smiley has eight number-one comedy albums to his credit. Prank Calls Vol. 6 peaked at No. 4 on Billboard in 2011 and stayed on the chart for 6 weeks, and Open Casket Sharp peaked at No. 5 and stayed on the chart for 1 week.
Smiley began participating on Rickey Smiley For Real, a reality television series based on his life, in 2015. Smiley’s Stand by Your Truth, then Run for Your Life, published by Gallery Books two years later, describes his thoughts, passions, and experiences growing up and being mentored by legendary comics in the entertainment industry such as Steve Harvey and Tom Joyner. Smiley took over as morning show host for Radio Station KBFB in Dallas, Texas, in 2020, succeeding Tom Joyner, who had recently retired.
Smiley also got the industry’s highest accolade for his radio show, “Network/Syndicated Personality of the Year.” He received the same award again in 2021 as part of the National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) 2021 Marconi Radio Awards.
Rickey Smiley, a well-known comic and radio personality in the early twenty-first century, is a single father to two daughters, D’essence and Aaryn, and two sons, Brandon and Malik.