Chelsea Peretti

Chelsea Vanessa Peretti (born February 20, 1978) is an American comedian, actress, television writer, singer and songwriter. She is best known for portraying Gina Linetti in the police comedy series Brooklyn Nine-Nine.

Early life and education

Peretti was born on February 20, 1978, in Oakland, California, the daughter of a schoolteacher mother and a criminal defense lawyer and painter father. Her father is of English and Italian descent and her mother is Jewish. She was raised in Oakland, California. She has two brothers and a sister; her older brother, internet entrepreneur Jonah Peretti, co-founded BuzzFeed and The Huffington Post. Peretti attended The College Preparatory School in Oakland. She moved to New York City in 1996 to attend Barnard College, during which time she took a study year abroad in her junior year to Royal Holloway, University of London, graduating in 2000. She attended elementary school with her Brooklyn Nine-Nine co-star Andy Samberg and junior high school with comedian Moshe Kasher.

Career

Writing

Peretti has written for The Village Voice, Details, Playgirl, Jest, American Theatre Magazine, as well as online publications including The Huffington Post.

Television

After moving to Los Angeles, Peretti made appearances on programs such as Kroll Show, Louie, The Sarah Silverman Program, TruTV Presents: World's Dumbest..., and Tosh.0. She appeared as a guest correspondent on one episode of Lopez Tonight interviewing local citizens about Prop 8.

Peretti is credited as a writer on six episodes of the television show Parks and Recreation from 2011 to 2012.

From 2013 until 2019, Peretti was a series regular on NBC's detective/police comedy Brooklyn Nine-Nine, playing Gina Linetti until she announced her departure from the show in October 2018. Her departure episode was "Four Movements" but, after being gone for half of the season, she appeared again in "Return of the King", premiered May 2, 2019.

In other media

While in New York, Peretti made short films with Variety SHAC, a comedy troupe she formed in 2004 with Andrea Rosen, Heather Lawless and Shonali Bhowmik.

She has made several guest appearances on podcasts including Doug Loves Movies, How Did This Get Made?, WTF with Marc Maron, You Made It Weird with Pete Holmes, The Todd Glass Show, The Lavender Hour, The Bone Zone with Brendon Walsh and Randy Liedtke, and Comedy Bang! Bang! In October 2012, Peretti launched her own call-in podcast, Call Chelsea Peretti.

In July 2010, Peretti made Variety magazine's "Ten Comics to Watch in 2010" list. Paste ranked her Twitter account #75 on "The 75 Best Twitter Accounts of 2014".

On April 21, 2020, Chelsea Peretti released an EP titled Foam and Flotsam, a musical comedy concept album about coffee. She created the music in collaboration with Kool Kojak, and the songs feature guests Reggie Watts, Terry Crews, and Juliette Lewis. Comprising five songs, they contain such evocative lyrics as "How you gonna show up late but have a coffee in your hand?" and "Yeah, I wanna drink coffee with you, but I'm gonna need a soundproof bathroom". In tandem with the EP, Peretti also released two accompanying music videos: "Late", and "Oatmilk". Her music style is described as "whimsical yet depressive...[slamming] you into a wall and then [sliding] you up that wall and [releasing] you into a new galaxy."

Personal life

Peretti began dating comedian and filmmaker Jordan Peele in 2013. They got engaged in November 2015. On April 26, 2016, Peretti announced that she and Peele had eloped. They have a son who was born in 2017.

Discography

Studio albums

• TBA (Released: June 2020)

Extended plays