Theo Von

Theo Von, born Theodor Capitani von Kurnatowski III, was born and largely raised in what he calls the “stray animal belt” of southern Louisiana, growing up in Covington in circumstances he describes as “low-income,” and was legally emancipated at 14. He has said he did not grow up with much, that the only thing he felt he had was his voice, and that one of the only times he felt comfortable was when people were laughing. Known to his high school classmates as Theo Vonkurnatowski, he graduated from Mandeville High School and, after attending several colleges, earned his undergraduate degree from the University of New Orleans.⁠[1][1][2][3][3][2][2][2]

His start in comedy came during a Semester at Sea voyage, when he riffed over an open microphone about the odd availability of fresh milk on the ship. He later drove across the Causeway to perform in New Orleans comedy showcases, and counts Richard Pryor and Chris Rock among his early influences. He describes himself as Polish-Nicaraguan.⁠[2][2][3]

Von moved to Los Angeles in his early twenties and first gained attention on MTV reality shows, appearing on Road Rules: Maximum Velocity Tour and The Challenge. In August 2006, on the fourth season of NBCNBCNBC (National Broadcasting Company) is an American national commercial broadcast television network. It was founded by RCA in 1926, began as a radio network and later developed television. With ABC and CBS it is one of the three traditional U.S. broadcast networks; it passed to General Electric with RCA in 1986, merged with Universal to form NBCUniversal in 2004, has been controlled by Comcast since 2011, and is one of the five networks that rotate in the White House television pool.Open the full entry’s comedy competition Last Comic Standing, the title went to Josh Blue, while Von won the parallel online competition. He also won Comedy Central’s Reality Bites Back over comedians including Amy Schumer and Tiffany Haddish, and hosted the hidden-camera show Deal With It.⁠[3][1][4][4][1][1]

In February 2012 Von became host of Yahoo’s TV recap show Prime Time in No Time, which then drew a monthly audience of 6.7 million viewers; he described his style as a mixture of Lil Wayne and Larry the Cable Guy. On June 1 that year his first stand-up special, taped in Boston, aired as part of Comedy Central’s The Half Hour series.⁠[5][5][5][2]

In 2016 Von released the Netflix stand-up special Theo Von: No Offense, covering his dating mishaps, meeting Brad Pitt and chasing down fugitive chimpanzees; one bit recounts being pulled from summer camp in 1994 to help police look for primates that had escaped from a local testing facility. He later released a second Netflix special, Regular People.⁠[6][6][3][7]

After 14 years in Los Angeles, Von’s career had stalled; he has said Hollywood lumped everyone who sounded like him into one category, and he no longer wanted to accommodate it. In 2016 he began producing, editing and uploading his own videos for what became the long-form video podcast This Past Weekend, built on folksy storytelling and interviews; the first episode, released on December 19, 2016, covered his past weekend. A 2017 appearance on The Joe Rogan Experience inspired him to decide that he “just need[ed] to talk about myself” and “be myself” on the show.⁠[3][3][3][8][8][3][3]

The show is updated weekly and categorized as comedy interviews. Von was also one of the founders of King and the Sting, a podcast he co-hosted with Brendan Schaub from 2018 to 2022.⁠[9][1]

In August 2019 Von joined the Skydance science fiction film Ghost Draft (later titled The Tomorrow War), starring Chris Pratt, taking time off from his Dark Arts tour, which had sold out around the world, to shoot it. Around the same time Comedy Central shot Man Up, a pilot he created and starred in. He has also appeared on shows including Inside Amy Schumer.⁠[10][1][10][10][1]

In 2020 Von, like many others, left Los Angeles for Nashville, Tennessee. As of April 2023 his podcast had 5 million monthly listeners and he had roughly 10 million social media followers, with 2 billion TikTok views, more than half of them from clips edited and shared by fan accounts; he said this was both amazing and scary because he had no control over it. His politics have long been debated: after he hosted conservative commentator Tomi Lahren in 2020 some fans called him right-wing, and after Jesse Ventura appeared in 2021 many listeners argued otherwise.⁠[3][3][3][3][3]

This Past Weekend had been one of the top shows on the podcast network Kast Media. Von left Kast at the beginning of 2023 and joined Rooster Teeth’s podcast network in March. On September 6 he posted a roughly 10-minute YouTubeYouTubeYouTube is Google’s video-sharing and creator platform, founded in 2005 by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim and acquired by Google in 2006. Built around video uploading, viewing, and creator earnings, the platform has developed Shorts, YouTube Music, Premium, YouTube TV, and products for children, and is headquartered in San Bruno, California, United States.Open the full entry video, “This Man Defrauded Our Podcast,” alleging that Kast Media and its founder and chief executive, Colin Thomson, had failed to pay a group of creators including him more than $4 million for ads sold on their shows, with his own show owed a six-figure sum. He also said Thomson and LiveOne chief executive Rob Ellin had offered to pay part of what he was owed in stock if he moved to PodcastOne, an offer he declined.⁠[11][12][12][12][13][13]

Two days after the video, on September 8, PodcastOne, spun off from LiveOne, listed on the Nasdaq; its shares fell 45% after trading opened, from $8 to a close of $4.39, and were down more than 80% three weeks later. Ellin said PodcastOne was no longer hiring Thomson and described Kast Media as a “very distressed, troubled asset” that owed podcasters a lot of money. Thomson denied all allegations of fraud but acknowledged “business decisions” he regretted, saying he did not deserve some of what was said about him but did deserve some of it.⁠[12][13][11][13][13][12][12]

During the 2024 U.S. election Von interviewed a number of politicians. In an episode released on August 20 he spoke with Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump at his country club in Bedminster, New Jersey, about healthcare reform, border security and why Trump refrains from drinking and smoking, and the two also discussed addiction and the opioid crisis; Trump later said his son Barron had urged him to do the show. On October 21 Von interviewed Trump’s running mate, JD Vance; that year he also interviewed Bernie Sanders and Mark CubanMark CubanMark Cuban is an American entrepreneur and investor whose early work in computer systems and internet audio and video expanded into sports, film, venture investment and pharmaceuticals. He was the Dallas Mavericks’ controlling owner and a longstanding investor on Shark Tank, and co-founded Mark Cuban Cost Plus Drug Company.Open the full entry, and said he had tried to host Kamala Harris and Tim Walz as well.⁠[8][8][1][1][8][7][1]

In November 2024 Von announced that he and comedian David Spade had written, were self-financing, and would star in and produce the buddy comedy Busboys, about two friends in an Arizona border town who think becoming waiters will solve all their problems; directed by Jonah Feingold, it began shooting in Los Angeles on January 10, 2025.⁠[7][7][7][7]

In Spotify’s year-end charts released on December 4, 2024, This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von ranked fourth among podcasts globally and third in the United States, behind The Joe Rogan Experience and Call Her Daddy.⁠[14][14]

On January 20, 2025, Von attended Trump’s second presidential inauguration. His guests in 2025 included Scale AI founder and chief executive Alexandr WangAlexandr WangAlexandr Wang is an artificial intelligence entrepreneur, a co-founder and former chief executive officer of Scale AI. He joined Meta in June 2025 as the company’s first chief AI officer and leads Meta Superintelligence Labs. His work spans AI training data, model evaluation, government applications, and personal agents.Open the full entry (February 18, discussing his choice to drop out of MIT and AI’s effect on jobs), Meta chief executive Mark Zuckerberg (April 28), Vice President JD Vance (June 7) and OpenAI chief executive Sam AltmanSam AltmanSam Altman is an entrepreneur and investor, and the co-founder and chief executive officer of OpenAI. He previously served as president of Y Combinator and founded the location-based social service Loopt. He also helped found Tools for Humanity and Merge Labs, has invested in energy and life sciences ventures, and has driven public discussion of AI governance, employment, and wealth distribution.Open the full entry (July 23), as well as Ben Affleck, Morgan Wallen, Chelsea Handler and left-wing streamer Hasan Piker.⁠[1][8][8][8][8][8][1]

On May 15, 2025, ahead of Trump’s visit to Al-Udeid Air Base in Qatar, Von performed a stand-up set for U.S. troops stationed there in which he joked about snorting drugs off a mixed-race baby and the sexuality of men in the U.S. Navy, and compared the Qatari hosts’ attire to Klansman robes, drawing laughter and some groans as well as questions about why he was there. Mentioning him that day, Trump recalled his son urging him to do Von’s podcast and asking at the time, “Who the hell is Theo Von?” Von had previously taken part in five USO tours.⁠[1][1][1][1][1]

In 2026 This Past Weekend continued to release weekly episodes, with guests including Senator Bernie Sanders on a return visit (January 21), Candace Owens, former University of Alabama football coach Nick Saban and actor Josh Brolin (episode 690, October 13). Von was touring at the same time with his Return of the Rat Tour.⁠[8][8][9][9][8][15]

Like his stand-up, Von’s podcast mostly flows in stream-of-consciousness, ranging from his own addiction issues to sensitive topics such as white privilege. He is often described as “the next Joe Rogan” and grouped with the so-called manosphere of online personalities. He is reluctant to label himself politically and tries to balance guests from left and right; New York Times pop music critic Jon Caramanica, after watching more than 60 hours of the show, concluded that whether he leans left or right “depends from where you’re looking.”⁠[3][3][1][1][1]

Personal website: https://www.theovon.com/ (opens in a new window)⁠[9]

X: Public account: https://x.com/TheoVon (opens in a new window)⁠[16][17]

YouTube: Public channel: https://www.youtube.com/c/theovon (opens in a new window)⁠[17]