Jaime Elizabeth Pressly (born July 30, 1977) is an American actress and model. She is best known for playing Joy Turner on the NBC sitcom My Name Is Earl, for which she was nominated for two Emmy Awards (winning one) as well as a Golden Globe Award and a Screen Actors Guild Award. She has also appeared in films such as Joe Dirt, DOA: Dead or Alive and I Love You, Man.
Early life
Pressly was born in Kinston, North Carolina, the daughter of Brenda Sue (née Smith), a dance instructor, and James Liston Pressly, a car salesman. She has two siblings: sister Jessica and brother James Liston Pressly, Jr. She spent 11 years studying gymnastics and dancing.
Pressly attended Costa Mesa High School in California, where her mother had moved while her parents were going through a divorce. By age 14, she was the spokeswoman for her modeling agency "International Cover Model Search" and had begun to gain recognition for her modeling in the USA, as well as in Italy and Japan. Pressly subsequently sought and succeeded in having herself legally emancipated from her parents at the age of 15 so she could take up a modeling job in Japan; neither of her parents could make the trip, so she had to be emancipated to go on her own.
Pressly starred as "Violet" in the 1997 film Poison Ivy: The New Seduction. In 1998 she starred as "Nikki" on the short-lived TV series "Push", and also played a recurring role as the undead assassin Mika in the TV action series Mortal Kombat: Conquest. From 1999 to 2001, Pressly starred as "Audrey" on the drama series Jack and Jill.
Pressly starred in the independent film Poor White Trash, playing scheming gold-digger Sandy Lake. She subsequently appeared in a number of films, including Not Another Teen Movie (playing Priscilla, a high school cheerleader) and Torque, as a crazed, motorcycle-riding criminal.
In 2001, she was made the new spokesmodel for Liz Claiborne Cosmetics and its fragrance Lucky You. In 2002, she was ranked #8 in Stuff magazine's "102 Sexiest Women in the World". In 2003, she launched a lingerie line, J'Aime, which later became a full sleepwear and ready-to-wear line. In 2006, Maxim magazine named her #34 on its annual list; she is also featured in its gallery. Pressly posed nude for the March 1998 and February 2004 issues of Playboy. She also appeared nude in the May 2006 issue of Allure.
Pressly guest starred in episodes of several TV shows. In an episode of the WB series Charmed, played Mylie, a mermaid trying to find love; (Alyssa Milano, who played Phoebe, later guest starred on My Name is Earl.) Other series in which Pressly guest starred were The Twilight Zone, Fastlane, Las Vegas, Becker. Night Man and Silk Stalkings. She also appeared in an episode of the prank series Punk'd.
Pressly at the 2009 premiere of I Love You, Man
In 2005, Pressly was cast in the NBC sitcom My Name Is Earl, as Joy Turner. In 2007 she won the Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series for her work on the show. She has also been nominated for several other awards.
Pressly sang "Fever" in an appearance with the band The Pussycat Dolls. She has also appeared in a number of music videos, including "The Space Between" by Dave Matthews Band, "Girls of Summer" by Aerosmith and the Marilyn Manson cover of "Tainted Love". On May 31, 2006, she hosted the first annual VH1 Rock Honors.
Pressly was a producer as well as a star in the 2005 movie Death to the Supermodels. She hosted the October 7, 2006 episode of Saturday Night Live. Prior to this, she guest starred on an episode of MADtv from season eleven, where she played Hillary Clinton in a parody of My Name Is Earl, "My Name Is Dubya", in which George W. Bush (Frank Caliendo) makes a list of all the bad things he's done in the past and rectifies them one by one. She is featured in the 2008 video game Saints Row 2 in which she plays lead role Jessica, a lieutenant for the fictitious Brotherhood gang.
On December 3, 2009, it was announced that Jaime would guest-star on an upcoming episode of the CBS comedy, Rules of Engagement. She would play a possible surrogate mother for Jeff and Audrey (Patrick Warburton and Megyn Price). She reprised her role in the 5th season premiere.
She is in the new music video for "Pray For You" by Jaron And The Long Road To Love.
In 2010 she became the spokesperson for the "AXE Detailer Will Clean Your Dirty Balls" ad campaign for AXE Shower Gel. The ad employs double entendres, talking to men, but showing different types of sports equipment/balls.
Pressly appears in the Fox sitcom I Hate My Teenage Daughter, which premiered on November 30, 2011.
Friends for nine years since 1996, she started dating DJ Eric Calvo (aka DJ Eric Cubeechee) in 2004. After Pressly became pregnant, the two were engaged in October 2006. Pressly gave birth on May 11, 2007 at 7:31 a.m. in Cedars-Sinai Medical Center to their first child Dezi James Calvo. In a February 2007 interview on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno, Pressly said she wants the child to be bilingual (English/Spanish) to reflect Calvo's Cuban heritage. Pressly told People magazine the name is part of a running joke, as Cuban-American Calvo does a Desi Arnaz impersonation, calling Pressly "Luuucy" when he comes home at night. In November 2008 the couple announced their separation.
Pressly said in a 2006 interview with Esquire magazine that she almost purchased a ticket for a flight on one of the planes that crashed into the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001, but decided not to take the flight because she felt it left too early in the morning.
In July 2009, Pressly became engaged to entertainment lawyer Simran Singh. They married on September 26, 2009 at the Dick Clark Estate. Guests, including Pressly's two-year-old son Dezi James, attended the ceremony on a bluff overlooking the Pacific Ocean.
Pressly was arrested in Santa Monica, California on the night of January 5, 2011 for suspicion of driving under the influence. On August 25, 2011, she pleaded no contest and received three years of informal probation.
On January 21, 2011, Pressly filed for divorce from Singh, citing irreconcilable differences.
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