Tavis Smiley (; born September 13, 1964) is an American talk show host and author. Smiley was born in Gulfport, Mississippi, and grew up in Bunker Hill, Indiana. After attending Indiana University, he worked during the late 1980s as an aide to Tom Bradley, the mayor of Los Angeles. Smiley became a radio commentator in 1991 and, starting in 1996, he hosted the talk show BET Talk (later renamed BET Tonight) on Black Entertainment Television (BET). After Smiley sold an exclusive interview of Sara Jane Olson to ABC News in 2001, BET declined to renew his contract that year. Smiley then began hosting The Tavis Smiley Show on National Public Radio (NPR) (2002–04) and hosted Tavis Smiley on the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) on weekdays and The Tavis Smiley Show on Public Radio International (PRI) from 2004 until 2017. Smiley's career suffered repercussions after he was suspended and later fired from PBS after an investigation during the Me Too movement found that he was guilty of widespread sexual misconduct and sexual harassment. He sued PBS for wrongful termination and lost the court case after the jury found he violated the company's moral clause. The judge ordered Smiley pay PBS $2.6 million in damages. Early life Tavis Smiley was born in Gulfport, Mississippi, the son of Joyce Marie Roberts, a single woman who first became pregnant at age 18. On September 13, 1966, his second birthday, his mother married Emory Garnell Smiley, a non-commissioned officer in the U.S. Air Force. A few years later Tavis learned the identity of his biological father, whom he identifies in his autobiography, What I Know For Sure: My Story of Growing Up in America, only as "T". Smiley's family soon moved to Indiana when his stepfather was transferred to Grissom Air Force Base near Peru, Indiana. On arriving in Indiana, the Smiley family took up residence in a three-bedroom mobile home in the small town of Bunker Hill, Indiana. The Smileys had three more children and added four more after the murder of Joyce's sister. Initially, four of her five children were cared for by their grandmother (known as "Big Mama"), but ill health impaired her ability, and Joyce and Emory took them in. The trailer home sheltered thirteen, including Tavis and his seven brothers and two sisters and the three adults. Smiley's mother was a very religious person, and the family attended the local