Kennedy (commentator)

Lisa Kennedy Montgomery was born in Indianapolis, Indiana, and raised in Lake Oswego, Oregon,[4] a suburb of Portland. She is half Romanian and half Scottish.[5][6] She attended Lakeridge High School.[7] She has a bachelor's degree from University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA).[8][9][10] Kennedy interned as a DJ at KROQ radio in Los Angeles as a teenager[11]; she was known on KROQ as "the Virgin Kennedy".[12]

She was an early VJ at MTV.[1][3] As "Kennedy", she started at MTV hosting the late-night alternative rock show 120 Minutes. As the 1990s grunge-music movement grew, she hosted Alternative Nation from 1992–1997.[13]

In 1999, Kennedy completed her book Hey Ladies! Tales and Tips for Curious Girls, in which she incorporated a multitude of personal experiences. That same year, she moved to Seattle to host The Buzz on KQBZ radio; the show was a mix of news, local issues, and comedy.[14] Montgomery left Seattle in 2001 to cohost a morning radio show with Ahmet Zappa on the Comedy World Radio Network, The Future with Ahmet & Kennedy, a similar mix of current events and comedy.[3] She later co-hosted a morning show with Malibu Dan, The Big House.[3]

Beginning June 3, 2002, Kennedy hosted Game Show Network's Friend or Foe?,[15] which ran for two seasons. On April 1, 2003, she guest-hosted the GSN show WinTuition. She also hosted GSN's Who Wants to Be Governor of California?,[15] a televised debate among fringe candidates in the 2003 California gubernatorial recall election, such as actors Gary Coleman and Mary Carey.

Beginning September 23, 2005, Kennedy appeared as an occasional panelist on VH1's Best Week Ever and MSNBC's Scarborough Country. In October 2005, she became host of Fox Reality's Reality Remix until that series ended in June 2008.

In December 2007, she guest-hosted the evening show several times on Los Angeles talk-radio station KFI,[16] before being hired by the station for a regular Sunday-afternoon show.[17] In April 2008 she joined Bryan Suits as cohost of the Kennedy & Suits Show at that station, through September 30, 2009. She hosted Music in the Mornings on KYSR in Los Angeles from 2009 until March 2014.[18]

Kennedy in July 2018

On January 18, 2011, she began appearing as Anthony Sullivan's assistant on PitchMen, looking for new inventions to promote in infomercials.

Kennedy joined Fox Business Network as a contributor in 2012. She co-hosted The Independents, a current-events and political discussion show, from its debut on December 9, 2013.[2] The show was cancelled in January, 2015, but she continued as host of her own program, Kennedy.[19][20] The 'Kennedy' show was put on hiatus March 13, 2020 as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic.

She is also a contributor to Reason.com and Reason.tv, and occasionally serves as guest host for Bill Carroll, John and Ken, and Tim Conway Jr. on KFI. She was a correspondent on the Fox Business talk show Stossel, and made occasional appearances as a panelist and guest host on Fox News' Red Eye. She has also made appearances on other Fox chat shows, such as Outnumbered and The Five.

Kennedy speaking with attendees at the 2019 Young Americans for Liberty Convention at the Philadelphia Airport Marriott in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

Kennedy is a libertarian and a registered Republican.[10] She has a pink Republican elephant tattooed on her upper left thigh.[21]

She is a supporter of same-sex marriage[22][23] and officiated at the wedding of fellow Fox contributor Guy Benson to fiancé Adam Wise.[24][25] She also supports privatized Social Security.[26] She opposes the "war on drugs" and bureaucratic regulation.[27] She is critical of neoconservatism.[28]

At MTV's 1993 Rock 'n' Roll Inaugural Ball for Bill Clinton, she chanted, "Nixon now! Nixon now!" whenever the Clintons went on stage.[29] Along with being a fan of Richard Nixon, she supported Dan Quayle and Bob Dole.[30] She was a speaker at the 1996 Republican National Convention.[21]

She later abandoned social conservatism, saying, "Social conservatism was really bringing me down, and I realized, as time went on, that I wasn't a Bush conservative. I was really a libertarian."[27][31] She was first introduced to libertarianism when Kurt Loder suggested she read Ayn Rand's Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology.[32] She actively supported Gary Johnson in both the 2012 and 2016 presidential elections.[33]

In March 2012, Reason published an article by Kennedy saying atheism is a religion on par with theistic religions.[34]

Kennedy is married to former professional snowboarder Dave Lee, and they have two daughters.[35]

Kennedy dated frontman and guitarist, John Rzeznik from the band Goo Goo Dolls.[36] The song "Name" was written about her.[37]

She has the Romanian flag tattooed on her left ankle.[38][27]

In September 2012, during an appearance on Red Eye, Kennedy said she had been diagnosed with celiac disease,[39] leading her to change to a more meat-based diet.

• Kennedy (1999). Hey Ladies!: Tales and Tips for Curious Girls (1 ed.). New York City: Main Street Books. ISBN 9780385490948.
• Kennedy (2013). The Kennedy Chronicles: The Golden Age of MTV through Rose-Colored Glasses (1 ed.). New York City, New York: Thomas Dunne Books. ISBN 978-1250017475.

• List of people diagnosed with celiac disease
• "Name", a song written about Kennedy

• Kennedy on Twitter
• Kennedy on IMDb
• Reason.tv: Kennedy on Medical Marijuana, guns, alt rock and politics