Maria Menounos Kreiss Anniversary Celebration April

Maria Menounos (Greek:Μαρία Μενούνου) (born June 8, 1978) is an American actress, journalist, television presenter and occasional professional wrestler known in The United States for her appearances as a correspondent for Today, Access Hollywood, Extra, and abroad for co-hosting the Eurovision Song Contest 2006 in Athens, Greece.

Click On image To See in Full Size Menounos was born in Medford, Massachusetts, to Greek immigrant parents Costas and Litsa Menounos. She has a younger brother, Peter,[1] and is fluent in the Greek language. From age 13–19, she was an employee of Dunkin' Donuts.[2] Menounos attended the Dormition of the Virgin Mary Greek Orthodox Church in Somerville, Massachusetts. Menounos attended Medford High School in Medford, MA. In 1995, Menounos began to compete in beauty pageants. The following year, she won the title of Miss Massachusetts Teen USA and competed at Miss Teen USA where she placed in the top 15, receiving an honorary mention, during the preliminary competition; Menounos placed 13th in preliminaries. The pageant was won by Christie Lee Woods. Maria competed for the title of Miss Massachusetts USA 2000; she was the 1st runner up. Later Menounos attended Boston's Emerson College where she participated in the now award winning organization, Emerson Independent Video. During her senior year, she was hired as a reporter for Channel One News. Her work for Channel One's 10-minute segments included traveling to El Salvador to report on the earthquake of 2001, interviewing North Atlantic Treaty Organization aircrew members aboard an AWACS while flying a combat air patrol mission during the military alliance's Operation Eagle Assist and interviewing then President George W. Bush. Entertainment Tonight hired Menounos as a correspondent in 2002, where she reported on movies, music and fashion. ET executives offered her a hosting gig for ET on MTV & VH1; she left the program in 2005 to focus on her acting career, though she would eventually join rival program Access Hollywood later that Fall as a special correspondent.[3] She went on to co-host a few episodes of the Today show in the late summer and fall of 2006 as well as in April 2007. In 2003, Menounos appeared on the November 30 episode of Punk'd where she was one of many celebrities caught in the awkward and embarrassing "Red Carpet Interviews".

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