About
Born in San Francisco at the Stanford University hospital, Ellen K, the youngest of six Norwegian children grew up in academic surroundings. Ellen’s father, a math scientist turned rocket engineer who graduated from Berkeley and taught at Stanford, would move the family to a small Indiana town for a high ranking position at Purdue University (from which all six kids would graduate).
At the young age of 4, Ellen began competitively swimming…leading to discipline twice a day workouts and a place on the Indiana AAU swim team.
After graduating from high school as co-captain of the swim team and homecoming queen, Ellen decided to choose a major in Veterinary Science. Long hours in the Purdue library and in the swimming pool bored Ellen – until she landed a sweet internship at a local radio station. The internship would give her just enough credits to change her major to Radio/TV/Film…and change her life forever.
Ellen fell in love with radio when one day her boss at the station came down with the flu and named Ellen as her instant fill-in! From the moment Ellen began taking requests and talking to listeners, she knew she was hooked!
Over the course of the next decade, radio jobs would take Ellen from her small Indiana surroundings to San Diego, San Francisco and finally Los Angeles, the #1 radio market in the world.
It was a decade full of discovery-from learning that her longtime sweetheart was gay to landing a gig with the legendary Rick Dees, to meeting a radio executive she fell deeply in love with…it was all a journey that proved very worthwhile.
Ellen has enjoyed success in both radio and television – her relaxed and easy manner in front of a camera and behind a microphone landed her many assignments. She co-hosted with Wayne Brady on his Emmy award winning talk show and worked as a correspondent for the popular entertainment news show, Extra. Ellen has also served as a music and entertainment expert for KCAL-TV in Los Angeles, and acted as correspondent for the syndicated program, Real TV.
Ellen now enjoys her mornings with Ryan Seacrest on the wildly popular and #1 rated KIIS-FM morning program. She happily spends her afternoons with her 4-year-old son, Calvin and that same radio executive she married 7 years ago.
In her downtime, Ellen enjoys exercise and has never lost her love for the water. These days she does yoga and runs to stay in shape, even starring in the best-selling DVED for Mark Blanchard’s Power Yoga. But, when coaxed back into the water to participate in triathlons for charity, Ellen dove in and won the Huntington Beach and Malibu triathlons. As her Norwegian grandma always said “Uff-da my Eelen” (“My goodness my Ellen”).
