Hater Hall of Fame: Greg Giraldo

Greg Giraldo,  Born December 10, 1965

The newest member of the Hater Hall of Fame was born and raised in Queens, NY; Greg Giraldo is the oldest son born to immigrant parents – his dad being Columbian, and his mother hailed from Spain.  Giraldo was a good student throughout his early school days, and after high school he chose to attend an Ivy League school close to home, Columbia University in Manhattan.  After his time as a fightin’ Lion, Giraldo went to Harvard Law School and began to pursue a career in ambulance chasing.  He received all his lawyering credentials, and went to work at a prominent firm in New York City that employs over 2,000 attorneys.  After a short, but undisclosed amount of time, Giraldo decided to abandon the rat race and traded his law books for a microphone.  When questioned about his former career, Giraldo usually pleads the fifth or dances around the issue.  Case in point, Giraldo was interviewed before a show at Cornell University in 2007, and one question was “What was your specialty when you studied law?”  Giraldo’s response was:  “I used to specialize almost primarily in candy issues and candy-related issues…nougat.  In fact, nougat was my sub-specialty.  There’s a lot of nougat-related tort laws that specifically relate to nougat and nougat-type candy…I don’t know if you’re in pre-law or anything like that, but its pretty much the cutting edge of the jurisprudence in our country.”

Currently, Giraldo is somewhat of an unheralded comedian on the national stage, even though he has been working steadily for some time now.  One of his first TV appearances was as a panelist on Comedy Central’s talk show Tough Crowd with Colin Quinn, which ran from 2002-2004.  Giraldo has also been on Late Night with Conan O’Brien over a dozen times, as well as David Letterman, Howard Stern, and XM/Sirius Radio’s The Opie and Anthony Radio Show.  Greg’s first and only comedy CD (Good Day to Cross a River) was released in 2006, and his hour long special Midlife Vices just premiered on Comedy Central a couple of weeks ago – it’s very funny by the way.  But his most well-recognized work has undoubtedly been as a roaster on the always funny Comedy Central celebrity roasts, which is basically an hour long display of hatin’ at its best. Giraldo always brings his A game during these events, and has taken shots at some of entertainment’s biggest icons - names like William Shatner, Flavor Flav, Jeff Foxworthy, Pam Anderson, Bob Saget, and Joan Rivers…upon further review, maybe icons wasn’t the best word to use when referring to that group.  When you combine his style of comedy with these roast appearances, Mr. Greg Giraldo easily earned a nod as our newest Hater Hall of Fame member.

(Uncensored clip from the Jeff Foxworthy Roast):