Carrie Ann Inaba

Categories

Living people

American people of Irish descent

20th-century American actresses

21st-century American actresses

American female dancers

American film actresses

American artists with disabilities

American television actresses

Judges in American reality television series

American musicians with disabilities

American actors with disabilities

American musicians of Chinese descent

American game show hosts

1968 births

American choreographers

University of California, Los Angeles alumni

People with myalgic encephalomyelitis/chronic fatigue syndrome

American people of Japanese descent

Actresses from Honolulu

American people of Chinese descent

People with Tourette syndrome

American women singers

American actresses of Japanese descent

University of California, Irvine alumni

Punahou School alumni

People from Hawaii of Japanese descent

Sophia University alumni

Musicians from Honolulu

Artists from Honolulu

American dancers of Asian descent

People from Hawaii of Chinese descent

American actors of Chinese descent

Dancers from Hawaii

American singers of Asian descent

Carrie Ann Inaba (born January 5, 1968) is an American television personality, dancer, choreographer, actress, and singer. She is best known for her work on ABC's Dancing with the Stars for which she has served as a judge since 2005. She co-hosted and moderated the CBS Daytime talk show The Talk from 2019 to 2021. She started her career as a singer in Japan, but became best known for her dancing, introducing herself to American audiences as one of the original Fly Girls on the Fox sketch comedy series In Living Color from 1990 to 1992.

Early life

Inaba was born and raised in Honolulu, Hawaii, graduating from Punahou School in 1986. She is of Irish, Japanese, and Chinese descent.

She attended Sophia University and University of California, Irvine before graduating from the University of California, Los Angeles with a B.A. degree in world arts and cultures.

Career

Singing

In 1986, an 18-year-old Inaba won a talent show in Hawaii. She was then groomed to be a pop star in Japan and given songs to read phonetically in Japanese from a lyric sheet.