Philip John Keoghan ( ; born 31 May 1967) is a New Zealand television presenter, best known for hosting the American version of The Amazing Race on CBS, since its 2001 debut. He is the creator and host of No Opportunity Wasted, which has been produced in the United States, New Zealand, and Canada. Keoghan also co-created and hosts the American reality competition programme Tough as Nails, which debuted on CBS on 8 July 2020. As of 2021, he has been involved with winning 10 Primetime Emmy Awards related to his work on The Amazing Race, where the show consecutively won the Outstanding Reality-Competition Program seven times.
Early life
Philip John Keoghan was born on 31 May 1967, in Lincoln, a satellite town of Christchurch, New Zealand. and following that, he attended St Andrew's College, Christchurch. After a series of further presenter work in New Zealand television, including as a reporter on That's Fairly Interesting, he, at 23, and his wife Louise left for the United States after his show Keoghan's Heroes was picked up by an American network.
Keoghan originally auditioned for the host of Survivor. Though he made the shortlist, the CBS network ultimately chose Jeff Probst for Survivor, and offered Keoghan the hosting duties for The Amazing Race. Keoghan has been host for the show from its inception and also serves as a producer. He currently has a contract extending for "several years" following The Amazing Race 18 in 2011 that will allow him to also develop other shows for CBS. In a 2002 interview, Keoghan admitted that his pay for a single episode of The Amazing Race is more than an entire year on Spot On.
Shortly after the February 2011 Christchurch earthquake, Keoghan visited his hometown to ensure his family was safe but also to record segments for The Early Show to implore viewers to provide aid to the New Zealand Red Cross and to promote continued tourism, a fundamental part of New Zealand's economy, to the country. At the same time, he participated in recording Air New Zealand's new safety video for its domestic jet fleet. Keoghan has hosted over 1,000 different programme episodes.
In June 2010, it was announced that Keoghan would host and produce a new reality series about the Velux 5 Oceans Race.
Keoghan told TMZ in 2010 that during the 10th season of The Amazing Race he was detained in Ukraine for two days until the U.S. ambassador in Ukraine intervened to free him.
Keoghan hosted National Geographic Explorer starting in the show's 11th season, to start airing in 2018. According to Keoghan, he had wanted to produce for Explorer and he and his wife-to-be had even filmed and submitted a pitch tape to the show's production at that time.
No Opportunity Wasted
While 19 and filming for Spot On, Keoghan and a partner dived down to the shipwreck of the MS Mikhail Lermontov, underwater. In his book No Opportunity Wasted, Keoghan wrote: