Chris Connelly

Chris Connelly

Essayist and Reporter

Following an eight-month stint as host of Unscripted with Chris Connelly, Connelly now serves as an essayist and reporter for ESPN.  His "On Second Thought with Chris Connelly" appears regularly on SportsCenter, ESPN’s flagship news and information program, while he has filed pieces and features for both SportsCenter and NFL Countdown. Additionally, Connelly has been involved with the creation of "Reality Bites" and "Obsession," two Sunday morning SportsCenter pieces. 

Chris Connelly joined ESPN in September 2001 as host of Unscripted with Chris Connelly, which debuted October 15, 2001 on ESPN. Additionally, he also continues to provide pieces for ABC News’ 20/20 and for Good Morning America.  

Prior to joining ESPN, Connelly was on-air correspondent and editorial director of MTV News. He continues as a contributing writer at Talk magazine where he has penned cover stories on celebrities (Angelina Jolie, Tom Hanks, Matt Damon, Tom Cruise and Ben Affleck). 

Connelly began his journalistic career in 1980 as a receptionist for Rolling Stone magazine where he went on to conduct interviews with and write cover stories on Madonna, Tom Cruise, Eddie Murphy, Sean Penn, U2 and Mick Jagger, and others. 

While at Premiere (1987-96) he became the magazine’s editor-in-chief, edited the publication’s respected Power List, and worked with a diverse group of writers including Donald Fagen, Veronica Chambers, John Sayles and John H. Richardson. Several stories he assigned and edited were turned into best-selling books by such authors as Rachel Abramowitz (Is that a Gun in Your Pocket?), and Nancy Griffin and Kim Masters (Hit and Run). 

From his earliest days at MTV, as host of the film show The Big Picture, Connelly served as the network’s primary movie interviewer, conducting one-on-ones with the likes of Steven Spielberg, Jim Carrey, Julia Roberts, Brad Pitt, Drew Barrymore, George Lucas, Cameron Diaz, Keanu Reeves and Tom Cruise. As an MTV correspondent, he covered the murder of Tupac Shakur, the shooting at Columbine High School, and the chaos of Woodstock ’99. 

Additionally, Connelly hosted and wrote a variety of shows for MTV News, including Where Were You at 22? (he was nominated for a News Emmy for Writing and interviewed John McCain and Al Gore about their young lives as part of the "Choose or Lose" 2000 election coverage), and Jim Carrey Uncensored (a recap of his numerous uninhibited encounters with Carrey over the years). 

He has also guest-hosted interview shows for NBC and ESPN2, and played himself in the feature films The Bodyguard and Last Action Hero. 

For the past two years, Connelly has served as a co-host of the official Academy Awards pre-show, and handled similar assignments with “red carpet” reports at the MTV Movie Awards, the MTV Video Music Awards, the Golden Globes, and the ESPYs. In 2001, he co-hosted and wrote the prime-time special MTV Presents: Super Bowl Uncensored for CBS. 

Born and raised in New York City, Connelly graduated magna cum laude from Amherst College in 1978. He is married with three children. 

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