Dubbed the Jon Stewart of the Arab World, cardiac surgeon Bassem Youssef was the host of popular TV show Al Bernameg – the first political satire show in the Middle East. Originally a 5-minute show on YouTube, Al Bernameg became the first online-to-TV conversion in the Middle East and the most-watched show across the region with 30 million viewers every week, and over a million subscribers to its YouTube channel. In recognition of his success, Youssef was named among the Time Magazine most influential list for 2013 – under the “Pioneers” category, was awarded the International Press Freedom Award by the CPJ, and was chosen by Foreign Policy magazine as one of the global thinkers during the same year. Youssef currently performs his one-man show, LATE FOR DEMOCRACY around the globe and the first title in Bassem’s upcoming children’s book series, The Magical Reality of Nadia published on February 2nd, 2021 by Scholastic and is currently being developed as an animated series. Bassem can be seen in MO (Netflix) and RAMY (Hulu) and just wrapped shooting a recur on UPLOAD (Amazon) as well as LIONESS for Paramount+. He lives in Los Angeles with his wife and two children.
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