Carrie Ann Inaba is an American dancer, choreographer, actress, singer, and television host who has a net worth of $7 million. Carrie Ann Inaba is best known for her work on ABC television’s “Dancing with the Stars” for which she has served as a judge since 2005. She is well-known in Japan for her singing and dancing career in the region.
Inaba was born in Honolulu, Hawaii on January 5, 1968. Her first dance instruction was at three years old in a “creative movement class,” where children danced on their own with scarves. As a child, she would dance in her backyard overlooking the Pacific Ocean. She graduated from Punahou School in 1986 and won a talent show around the time of graduation, gaining her enough recognition to move to Japan for a singing career.
Inaba moved to Japan in 1986 and became a local pop star. She was given songs to read phonetically in Japanese from a lyric sheet. Even though her first single made the Top 50, she “realized it has nothing to do with how artistic you are. Your face becomes the logo they sell.”
Inaba lived in Tokyo until 1988 and released three singles: “”Party Girl” (backed by “China Blue”), “Be Your Girl” (backed by “6½ Capezio”), and “Yume no Senaka” (backed by “Searching”) and hosted weekly radio and television series.
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In 1988, Inaba moved back to the United States. She became best known for her dancing, introducing herself to American audiences as one of the original Fly Girls on the Fox sketch comedy series “In Living Color,” from 1990 to 1992.
She also performed with Canadian singer Norman Iceberg and dancers Viktor Manoel (David Bowie’s “Glass Spider” tour) and Luca Tommassini at Prince’s notorious “Glam Slam.” Inaba appeared as a featured solo dancer during Madonna’s 1993 “Girlie Show World Tour,” on the condition she shaved her hair. After hesitating, Inaba decided it was worth it for her career.
Inaba’s choreography has appeared in several television series, including “American Idol,” “American Juniors,” “All American Girl,” “He’s a Lady,” “In Search of the Partridge Family,” “Married by America,” “The Sexiest Bachelor in America Pageant,” “The Swan,” and “Who Wants to Marry a Multi-Millionaire?” She also choreographed the Miss America Pageant for five years.
Inaba appeared in the first season of “So You Think You Can Dance” during the audition stages where she provided choreography for the “choreography round.”
Inaba served as an honorary judge at the 2009 USA Dance National Dane Sport Championships
Inaba appeared in the film “Austin Powers in Goldmember” (2002) as Fook Yu, alongside Diane Mizota, who played her twin sister Fook Mi. The two women are unrelated, but when Mizota was cast for her role, she was asked if she knew any actresses who resembled her and suggested Inaba. Inaba, who had appeared briefly in “Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me,” was given the role and the two women were made up to appear as identical twins. Inaba and Mizota reprised their roles with Mike Myers in a commercial for Motorola in 2005.
Inaba guest starred as Tina, Hannah’s choreographer, in the “Hannah Montana” episode, “Papa’s Got a Brand New Friend.”
TV Guide Network announced that it had signed Inaba to anchor its live red-carpet coverage, beginning with the 2009 Primetime Emmy Awards. Inaba had been a recurring guest co-host for the CBS Daytime talk show, “The Talk,” for the last two seasons. She officially replaced the original host Julie Chen as the fifth co-host and moderator permanently, formally debuting on January 2, 2019.
Inaba is also a judge on “Dancing with the Stars.”
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Inaba is the founder and President of EnterMediArts, Inc., a video production company. She directs, writes, and edits films. Her work includes “E! Behind The Scenes Miss America Special,” “7th Festival of the Pacific Arts,” “A Portrait of IVI and Beyond the Dancing Image,” along with the short feature film, “Black Water.”
She was a producer for the Broadway show “Burn the Floor” at New York’s Longacre Theatre. In 2008, Inaba was awarded the Visionary Award by East West Players, the oldest Asian Pacific American theatre company in the United States, for helping to raise “the visibility of the Asian American community through theater, film and television.”
When Inaba returned to the United States from Japan, she attended Sophia University and the University of California, Irvine. She graduated from the University of California, Los Angeles, with a B.A. in world arts and culture.
On the March 31, 2011, episode of “Live with Regis and Kelly,” Regis Philbin was “answering” a letter asking for advice on how to propose. The lights dimmed just before Inaba’s boyfriend, Jesse Sloan, appeared on stage. With violinists playing in the background, Sloan bent on one knee, and asked for Inaba’s hand, to which she responded, “Yes! I will marry you!” Inaba and Jesse met on online dating site eHarmony in 2009. In September 2012, a representative for “Dancing with the Stars” announced that Inaba and Sloan had amicably ended their engagement.
In December 2016, Inaba announced that she and actor Robb Derringer had become engaged after a few months of dating. Derringer proposed on a romantic, secluded beach on the California coastline, which was the site of their first date. In September 2017, they called off the engagement.
Inaba has expressed a great love and respect for animals, supporting organizations such as the Humane Society of the United States and PETA, and launching the Carrie Ann Animal Foundation in 2012. In 2012, Inaba started a new YouTube series about shelter cats, motivated by her love of the creatures. She has had as many as seven rescue animals as pets at the same time.
Inaba has worked with the Entertainment Industry Foundation’s iParticipate campaign, an American volunteer advocacy group, and Drea’s Dream, a dance therapy initiative for children with cancer. She’s also a founding member of Nigel Lythgoe’s dance education organization, the Dizzy Feet Foundation. After her mother’s battle with cancer in 2008, both women began to participate in the EIF Revlon Run/Walk for Women.
She has Sjögren syndrome, a chronic autoimmune inflammatory disease that destroys moisture-producing glands. As the Sjögren Syndrome Foundation’s National Awareness Ambassador and Spokesperson, she has expressed her commitment to increasing awareness of SS and promoting funding for research, treatment, and a cure.
On September 17, 2019, Inaba stated that she had been recently diagnosed with Lupus.
She also has chronic fatigue syndrome, chronic pain, and fibromyalgia. In 2019 while on “The Talk,” Inaba also opened up about struggling with Tourette Syndrome as a child.
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