Louis Theroux is a British broadcaster/journalist most famous for his television documentary series' 'Louis Theroux's Weird Weekends' and 'When Louis Met'. Louis was born in Singapore on 20th May 1970 to an American father and a British mother; his father being the well respected travel writer Paul Theroux - mostly noted for his works 'The Great Railway Bazaar' and 'The Mosquito Coast'. Theroux was educated at the private Westminster School in London and went on to study at the prestigious Magdalen College, Oxford, where he gained a First Class Degree in modern history. His first job in journalism was with Metro Silicon Valley, a free weekly newspaper in San Jose, California. In 1992, he was taken on as a writer for the satirical monthly magazine 'Spy', before his first break in television came as a correspondent on Michael Moore's satirical television show 'TV Nation' in America. After the series ended its run, Theroux signed to the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) on a career development deal, out of which came Louis Theroux's Weird Weekends. In addition to his TV work he also writes for popular bi-yearly British magazine The Idler, which is also satirical.

Throughout the series 'Weird Weekends', Louis follows various weird and wonderful subcultures, mainly American, including Survivalists, Black Nationalists, White Supremacists, and Porn Stars. During these escapades Theroux generally stayed with the subjects or in accommodation nearby. Louis himself describes the series as:- "Setting out to discover the genuinely odd in the most ordinary setting. To me, it's almost a privilege to be welcomed into these communities and to shine a light on them and, maybe, through my enthusiasm, to get people to reveal more of themselves than they may have intended. The show is laughing at me, adrift in their world, as much as at them. I don't have to play up that stuff. I'm not a matinee idol disguised as a nerd."

Weird weekends ran in the UK from 1998-2002, before Theroux subsequently embarked on an altogether different project called 'When Louis Met', in which he accompanied a different minor British celebrity in each programme as they went about their day to day business - interviewing them in his unique but humorous style in the process. His episode featuring British celebrity Sir Jimmy Saville was voted as one of the top fifty documentaries of all time in a survey by British television station Channel 4. Other subjects include former British Member of Parliament Neil Hamilton and his wife, who were being followed by Theroux at the time of a major public disgrace, as well as Max Clifford a well know British publicist and media mogul. During the latter, Clifford was caught by camera lying in an audacious attempt to set up Louis.

Between 2003-2006, Theroux worked on a number of one-off special programmes, returning to solely American themes and working at feature length. Theroux famously upset the father of Michael Jackson in 'Louis and Michael' by implying that Michael could be a homosexual. He signed a new contract with the BBC in 2006 to produce a further 10 films to be shown in the 3 year period to 2009. The first of these ten programmes was called 'Louis Theroux: Gambling in Las Vegas', during which he follows and investiges high rollers and casino managers in Sin City. One subject was the Dr Martha Ogman, it became more and more evident towards the conclusion of the show that she is addicted to gambling and had lost in excess of $4 million. Interestingly, Louis Theroux gambled his own money instead of using a production budget and left Vegas with $4,590 in cash after arriving with just $3,000; it should be noted that the BBC is funded by the British public and it would perhaps have been inappropriate for Theroux to be seen as living it up on the money of everyday people.

In the second show, 'The Most Hated Family in America', Theroux followed members of the highly controversial Westboro Baptist Church, a small family community (or cult!) most infamous for anti-homosexual beliefs and their picketing of the funerals of dead American service men. The third show 'Louis Theroux: Under The Knife', saw Theorux following patients receiving cosmetic surgery before proceeding to have Liposuction performed on himself. In the fourth programme, 'Louis Theroux: Behind Bars', Theroux immerses himself into the daily culture of San Quentin prison. He has since completed a further six episodes, all of which have been broadcast on British television and which have been gaining global popularity. He has also written and published a book called 'The Call of the Weird: Travels in American Subcultures' which was publish in 2005 to widespread critical acclaim. In this book, Louis travels back to America to visit the subjects of his original television series. Theroux has picked up various awards along the way including the Best Presenter award at the British Academy Television Awards 2001, which he then won in 2002 and for the second successive year.