Michael Rapaport

On television, he headlined the Fox sitcom The War at Home (2005–2007) and was a series regular on the Fox drama Boston Public (2001–2004), the fourth season of the Fox serial drama Prison Break (2008–2009), and the Netflix comedy drama Atypical (2017–2021). Rapaport held recurring roles on the NBC sitcoms Friends (1999), My Name Is Earl (2007–2008), and Justified (2014). Outside of his acting career, Rapaport directed the 2011 documentary Beats, Rhymes & Life: The Travels of A Tribe Called Quest about the hip hop group A Tribe Called Quest. Michael Rapaport was active on several podcasts, he is the host of the I Am Rapaport Stereo Podcast.

Rapaport was born in New York City, the son of June Brody, a New York radio personality, and David Rapaport, a radio executive who was the general manager of the all-disco format at New York radio station WKTU Disco 92. He has a brother named Eric Rapaport and an older half-sister named Claudia Lonow (née Rapaport) via his father's prior marriage to JoAnne Astrow. Lonow's daughter Isabella Roland is a comedian and actress best known for her work on the American website Dropout. Rapaport grew up on the Upper East Side of Manhattan, near 70th Street and York Avenue. He is Ashkenazi Jewish; his family is originally from Poland and Russia. Rapaport had a hard time in school. He attended Erasmus Hall High School in Brooklyn in the 1980s, but was expelled. He graduated from Martin Luther King High School in Manhattan.

In 1989, Rapaport moved to Los Angeles, California when he was 19 years old to try to become a stand-up comic. Rapaport's stepfather, comic Mark Lonow, who owned The Improv with Budd Friedman, helped him get into the stand-up world. He did that for three years. His big break in acting was on the TV series China Beach. Rapaport had a recurring role in My Name Is Earl as Frank, a convict Earl reunites with in prison. He played Homeland Security Agent Don Self in the fourth season of Prison Break. In October 2008, Rapaport announced that he was directing a documentary about hip hop act A Tribe Called Quest. The film, Beats, Rhymes & Life: The Travels of A Tribe Called Quest, was released in 2011 and received mostly positive reviews. Rapaport guest starred in the fifth season of the FX series Justified as villain Daryl Crowe Jr. On February 12, 2010, Rapaport participated in the NBA All-Star Weekend's Celebrity Game and was named the MVP because of his defense on football player Terrell Owens, the MVP of the last two Celebrity Games, despite scoring just four points and having only a single rebound. On April 17, 2014, an ESPN 30 for 30 film he directed premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival. The film, When the Garden Was Eden, was about the 1970s championship-winning New York Knicks led by Earl Monroe, Walt Frazier, and Willis Reed. Rapaport is a frequent guest on The Howard Stern Show on SiriusXM, and participates in the show staff's fantasy football league. Rapaport hosts the I Am Rapaport Stereo Podcast with childhood friend Gerald Moody. Other podcasts that Rapaport has appeared on include The Monday Morning Podcast with Bill Burr, Mailtime and Pardon My Take by Barstool Sports, The Adam Carolla Show, The Fighter and the Kid, Unqualified, The Bill Simmons Podcast and its predecessor, The BS Report; The Chive Podcast, WTF with Marc Maron, His & Hers Podcast, Cari Champion's Podcast, The Joey Boots Show, The Dirty Sports Podcast and more. On June 19, 2017, Rapaport announced on Twitter that he would be joining the sports satire website Barstool Sports where he would be a correspondent for the podcast Pardon My Take. On February 18, 2018, Rapaport was fired from Barstool Sports after making a rude comment toward their fan base. Rapaport is a reporter for Fox Sports, covering the Big3 basketball league formed by Ice Cube. He is the narrator of the WWE 365 series on WWE Network. In 2023, Rapaport competed in season ten of The Masked Singer as the wild card contestant "Pickle". A running gag is that he would bump into Nick Cannon. Rapaport was eliminated on "2000s Night". In 2026, Rapaport became a contestant on the reality TV show The Traitors. His comment toward fellow season 4 contestant Colton Underwood drew criticism as homophobic.

On May 18, 1997, Rapaport was arrested for harassing ex-girlfriend Lili Taylor and charged with two counts of aggravated harassment. He pleaded guilty to the charges in court and New York Supreme Court Justice Arlene Goldberg issued a protection order to keep the actor from contacting Taylor, as well as mandating that he undergo counseling sessions. In 2000, Rapaport married writer and producer Nichole Beattie. They have two sons. They divorced in 2007. In 2005, Rapaport wrote an article for Jane magazine about having to evict the actress Natasha Lyonne from a property he was renting to her during a period of heavy drug use on her part. The two have since reconciled and remain friends. In 2016, Rapaport married his long time girlfriend, actress Kebe Dunn. In June 2018, while on an American Airlines flight from Houston to Los Angeles, Rapaport stopped another passenger attempting to open an emergency door mid-flight.

After the October 7, 2023 Hamas-led attack on Israel, Rapaport appeared in many independent activist shorts supporting the release of hostages taken by Hamas and its affiliates. Rapaport has since become a vocal pro-Israel advocate. He has made multiple trips to Israel since late 2023, including visits to sites affected by the attacks and to Hostage Square, where he has spoken at rallies. Rapaport has publicly criticized what he views as a lack of support for Israel within the entertainment industry and has urged Jewish people to "reclaim and proudly own the term 'Zionist'". He also appeared on the Israeli satirical show Eretz Nehederet, mocking responses to antisemitism and the silence of some Hollywood figures regarding the conflict. He has said that his vocal stance has cost him acting jobs, but that he has no regrets about his advocacy. In February 2025, the militant pro-Israel group Betar US posted a video of Rapaport on social media, in which he praised the far-right Rabbi Meir Kahane, saying that "Kahane was always right." On December 31, 2025, Rapaport announced that he will be running for mayor of New York City in 2029.