Dom Joly

Dom Joly

Date of birth: 15-11-1968
Beiruit-born Dom Joly moved to Britain as a teenager, and started his professional career as a political producer for ITN. He then moved on to work off-camera on the first series of Channel 4's Mark Thomas Comedy Product.

He started doing hidden camera stunts as 'bumpers' between adverts and programmes on the Paramount Comedy Channel, and in 1998, made a pilot of Trigger Happy TV for Channel 4's Comedy Lab strand, which was commissioned for two full series, which run a silver Rose at the 2000 Montreux TV festival.

He was poached by the BBC for a rumoured £1 million, where he made the aggressive chat show This Is Dom Joly in 2003, before reverting to hidden camera work for World Shut Your Mouth in 2005.

He wrote a spoof autobiography in 2004 titled Look at ME, Look at ME! and writes a regular column for the Independent on Sunday

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Dom Joly: I was denied entry to the US

Social media posts landed comic in trouble

Dom Joly says he has been denied entry to the US because of his social media posts.

The Trigger Happy TV creator revealed that he was denied his Esta – which allows entry into the country without a visa – because of what he posted about Donald Trump online.

He told Times Radio: ‘I don’t hold back on Trump or his ilk, but it is very odd. I know a lot of people it’s happened to. I know several who’ve taken burner phones out there.’

Well-travelled Joly was born in Lebanon and is a regular travel writer, once penning a book called The Dark Tourist: Sightseeing in the World's Most Unlikely Holiday Destinations, where he travelled to the likes of Chernobyl, North Korea and the Killing Fields of Cambodia.

It may be possible for him to enter America if he can get a visa, which requires an interview at the US Embassy.

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Published: 30 Dec 2025

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