Nicole Byer

Nicole Byer (born August 29, 1986) is an American comedian, actress, television host, podcaster, and author. She is known as the host of the Netflix comedic reality bake-off series Nailed It! (2018–present), for which she received a Primetime Emmy Award nomination twice.Byer gained recognition for her work in the commentary series Girl Code (2013). Byer later starred in the MTV/Facebook Watch comedy series Loosely Exactly Nicole (2016–2018), which was based on her real life experiences. She made several guest appearances in such comedy series as 30 Rock (2012), Family Guy (2016), Transparent (2016–2017), The Good Place (2019), Brooklyn Nine-Nine (2019–2021), and The Simpsons (2019). She also appeared in films, including Other People (2016), All About Nina (2018), Bad Hair (2020), and Valley Girl (2020). In 2021, Byer began co-hosting Wipeout with John Cena.Byer is the host of the podcast Why Won't You Date Me?, the Earwolf podcast Best Friends, and the Headgum podcast Newcomers.

Byer supports body positivity and stated in an interview with Brit+Co, "Body positivity, to me, means you accept the body that you're in... And if you want to change it, you can, but you should love the skin that you're in currently, forever. Because everyone is beautiful. No one's truly ugly. You're always beautiful to somebody, and you're always ugly to somebody."On her sexual orientation, Byer has said that she "doesn't identify as straight", but is uncomfortable with the labels "bisexual" or "queer." She has stated on her podcast Why Won't You Date Me? that she is open to dating people of any gender, and has dated men and women in the past.She lives in Los Angeles with her two rescue dogs named Clyde and Charlie. She previously lived with fellow comedian John Milhiser.

Byer was born in New Jersey and moved to New York City in the early 2000s. She worked there as a waitress for a restaurant and cabaret club. She described how the experience eventually led to her to studying improv, "They would give me a lot of money because they were like, 'You're very funny. You have to get out of here. You're very bad at this [waiting tables].'" Byers parents both died when she was young, her mother while Nicole was a teen in high school, and her father when she was 21. She has said that comedy helped her work through both her parents' deaths, "it was a blessing that I had found these things before they passed away so I could escape."She then took classes at the Upright Citizens Brigade, starting improv and sketch comedy in June 2008, the same month that her father died. She continued with improv and sketch comedy for many years before starting her stand-up career in 2013. Byer graduated from the American Musical and Dramatic Academy Certificate Program in Professional Performance.