What Has Lisa Kennedy Montgomery Been Up To Since Her MTV VJ Days?

Back in the 1990s, all the cool kids watched MTV. The really cool kids, on the other hand, were chosen by MTV to be "VJs," Video Jockeys who would anchor the network's pop culture coverage and shape the tastes of a generation. One such VJ was Lisa Kennedy Montgomery, who went mononymously as Kennedy. Unlike most of the people on MTV at the time, Kennedy proudly self-identified as a Republican, offering a counterbalance to the wild young people who populated the channel.

Kennedy was a wild child, too, to be clear. She infamously got into it with controversial comedian Roseanne Barr at the VMAs, trading barbs about oral sex and Rush Limbaugh on stage. The incident almost got her fired, but she managed to cling to her job.

In the years since the VJ era ended, however, Kennedy has pivoted and then pivoted again. In fact, that's the main piece of advice she gives to young women, according to an interview with Haute Living. She recommends focusing on what you're good at and following that wherever it leads. "Either you change course and find something new you did not realize you were interested in and pour yourself into that," she said, "or you have a series of successes that give you confidence and hopefully humility, and your intuition serves you, and you continue forward on that path." This is what Lisa Kennedy Montgomery has been up to since her MTV VJ days.

As the 1990s drew to a close, so too did the age of the MTV VJ. To capitalize on her years in the spotlight, Kennedy released a memoir in 1999 called "Hey Ladies! Tales & Tips For Curious Girls." The book included advice for her fans, in addition to numerous anecdotes about what it was like to be on MTV when the music video channel was at the forefront of youth culture.

"Many of the ideas in here were born of situations I either overcame or completely messed up and would love to go back and change," Kennedy wrote in the book's introduction. "Life basically boils down to experience and the choices you make and this book is about some of mine. It's about being yourself and having a great time doing it."

The book was, on the whole, well-received. In Entertainment Weekly's review of the memoir, Clarissa Cruz wrote that although Kennedy was "annoying" on television, she nevertheless represented an alternative standard of beauty for young girls who weren't given too many proudly nerdy role models to look up to. "While the tome is unnecessarily peppered with cutesy happy faces," EW wrote, "the gawky teen pics of the tie-dyed and feathered-haired author are priceless."

In addition to anecdotes about palling around with celebrities and feeling like an awkward kid in high school, Kennedy's book "Hey Ladies!" did include at least one revelation that made the news. The video jockey announced that she began abusing substances like alcohol and marijuana at the age of ten, and her consumption quickly began to affect her health.

"I had a heart murmur, I was losing weight, I was pale, I was also a hypochondriac, for God's sake!" she wrote. A doctor confronted her about whether she'd been drinking, and Kennedy confessed. "I told him the truth. I was a pretty regular drinker, I never blacked out and didn't do it during the week, I seasoned my drinking with a dash of marijuana, and I'd been doing so since I was ten."

At age 14, Kennedy decided to stop drinking entirely. While she wrote that she didn't consider herself "sober," she simply didn't use alcohol any longer. Kennedy spoke about this decision in an interview with Independent Women's Forum, explaining, "I just can't stand the feeling of being drunk. I don't put myself in that position anymore. And, it is a matter of self-respect. I'd rather go dancing. I'd rather go bowling."

After she left MTV, Kennedy spent the 2000s appearing on a variety of other shows. She was a panelist on forty episodes of "Hollywood Squares," a regular talking head on VH1's "Best Week Ever," the host of a Game Show Network competition called "Friend or Foe?," and a guest expert on "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?"

One of her biggest gigs that decade was as the host of "Reality Remix," a reality television recap show for the now-defunct Fox Reality Channel. This was one of Kennedy's favorite jobs, considering the fact that she was a big fan of reality TV. She told The New York Daily News, "I love the subject matter. I love reality shows, and I love talking about them ... This allows me to do what I like to do as a host, what I do best, which is commenting, and making observations and interviewing people."

In addition to keeping up to date on shows like "The Apprentice" and "Survivor," Kennedy was a particular fan of VH1's "Breaking Bonaduce." The show followed former "Partridge Family" star Danny Bonaduce, and Kennedy loved the spectacle of it all. "I was amazed it made it on TV," she said. "It was so raw, so disturbing. You can't make this [stuff] up. His marriage was dissolving."

Back when she was an MTV VJ, Kennedy was the channel's token Republican. As she grew up, however, she learned more about politics and realized that her beliefs didn't exactly align with the Republican Party any longer. No, she's not voting Democrat; instead, the "50 Most Outrageous TV Moments" commentator came out in 2013 as a libertarian. 

"Back in the early 90s, I really considered myself to be a Republican," she told Entertainment Weekly. She found herself having policy disagreements, however, "I didn't like what the Republican party had to say about my gay friends, in particular. And I thought that the war on drugs didn't make a lot of sense, even though I don't take drugs." 

Instead, after a revealing conversation with magician and comedian Penn Jillette, Kennedy found that the libertarian label fit better. After all, she said, she's concerned about personal freedom and things like business regulations. "We get attacked from the right and the left, and I think that means that we're doing something right," she said. "If Rick Santorum and Rachel Maddow are both gunning for you, it probably means you're on the right track."

In addition to being a pop culture figure, a political commentator, a writer, and a host, Kennedy is also a triathlete. She used to exercise a lot back in her MTV days, according to an interview with Competitor.com, but she injured her knee and had to take it easy. However, a family tragedy led to a renewed interest in the sport, which involves running, biking, and swimming all in one event. "My mom was diagnosed with lymphoma in 2010," she explained, noting that her mother had already survived breast cancer. "I felt so helpless. That's when I really rededicated myself to tri. I thought, if my mom's going through chemo and isn't as physically capable of doing things as she'd like to, I'll use my body to its full potential right now to honor her and give me an outlet. It helped me to not feel so helpless."

That interview took place in 2013, but Kennedy is still going strong, no pun intended. In 2024, on an episode of her podcast "Kennedy Saves the World," she revealed that she had recently completed her tenth half-Iron Man. Kennedy passed on some advice she received from a friend, telling her listeners, "He said, 'Find the joy.' And that's what I did on the run ... I was not chained to my watch, I was not looking at the pace. ... Most importantly, I kept my head up, and I was smiling."

Kennedy's first book, "Hey Ladies!" was released at the tail end of the MTV VJ era, when she was still in the thick of it. Many years later, in 2013, she released a follow-up called "The Kennedy Chronicles: The Golden Age of MTV Through Rose-Colored Glasses." This time, Kennedy reassessed her years on the iconic channel with more distance, able to see how that hard-partying whirlwind of a lifestyle affected her.

"It's so funny because I thought I was nice and fun. I really did. I had such a warped self-image," she reflected to NBC News. "And I really think America thought I was an eccentric loudmouth. I thought I was demure. Can you imagine? But looking back, getting to watch some videos, I'm like — what the hell was I thinking?"

Still, though, it appears that Kennedy was none too upset about her legacy on television. "What's great about MTV is that it belongs to whatever generation is the steward at the time," she said. "It's something you can't hold onto, which makes it really cool. And it's one of the reasons I wanted to preserve the moment [in the book] — it was ours, it existed, and it was super fun."

When she was on MTV, much was made about the fact that Kennedy proudly identified as a virgin. That was the case until she met Dave Lee, a professional snowboarder who would become her husband. They had their first daughter in 2005, and another followed several years later. Kennedy wasn't worried about her daughters growing up to read "The Kennedy Chronicles," which detailed a number of specific things about her sexual history with her husband. "My daughters are going to read this, and the man who actually gets it is their dad!" she told NBC News. "He was the one that made me feel at home and loved, and he's awesome."

As the 2000s became the 2010s, Kennedy took on a number of additional hosting gigs, some on television and some on the radio. She told The Daily Beast that she was such a hard worker because she wanted to set a good example for her two daughters, even though her hectic schedule meant flying back and forth between New York and Los Angeles several times a week. She explained, "I want my girls to see that if something is really important to you, you have to move hell and high water to make it work."

After spending several years as the host of "Reality Remix" on the Fox Reality Channel, Kennedy moved over to Fox Business, anchoring a pair of shows in the early 2010s. First came "The Independents," a roundtable discussion show for people who don't identify as fitting into either side of the political spectrum. She told Entertainment Weekly that she hoped the show would be informative, not just entertaining. "We want to kind of analyze things and have a discussion, and I don't want to just have people on and raise straw man arguments," she said. "I want to have people on and hear why they believe what they believe, see if they can change my mind, and let them know that there are a lot of people out there who are frustrated with the way the government is being run right now."

Next came an eponymous talk show called "Kennedy," which launched on the network two years later, in 2015. The show saw Kennedy interview a number of interesting guests, in addition to monologuing about whatever pressing political issue she wanted to use her platform to discuss. "It's a quirky political talk show where I get to keep an eye on people who are inhibiting others' freedom and talk with interesting people about subjects that we find mutually fascinating, like music, parenting, economic liberty — the kind of stuff that you talk about with your good friends," she told Cosmopolitan. 

Never one to shy away from sharing details about her life with her fans, Kennedy has been open about the fact that she's been diagnosed as having Celiac disease. As a result, she told Haute Living she makes most of the food that she eats herself. "When I eat out, I just try and eat unprocessed [food] like chicken and a baked potato and steamed vegetables," she said. "When I go back to my house, that is when I have the most fun cooking and eating. There is a lot more quality control and I can play with flavors and textures and make my own stuff that I know is safe to eat." That makes sense; after all, when you're gluten-free, certain restaurant orders are just a bad idea.

To stay on top of her health, in addition to cutting out gluten and dairy, Kennedy maintains a strict workout regimen. "I take barre classes two or three times a week because it is overall muscle balancing," she revealed, noting that triathletes occasionally over-develop certain muscles. Plus, she just likes the workout. "If you find good instructors and have great music," she said, "it is something that you actually look forward to."

Okay, we know that we just said Kennedy was never one to shy away from sharing details about her life with her fans, but there's one specific area of her life where Kennedy kept fans in the dark. While she shared many intimate details about her marriage to former snowboarder Dave Lee in her memoir "The Kennedy Chronicles," the "Surreal Life: Fame Games" participant seemingly forgot to tell people when she got divorced.

In August 2022, a fan wrote to the Fox Business host on X, formerly Twitter, with a question about her marital status. "Kennedy, where is your wedding ring, last two times I saw you on ["Outnumbered"] it was gone?" Kennedy quote-tweeted the question and let her fans know, "Bro, I got divorced like 5 years ago." While many in the replies expressed excitement about the fact that she was single, evidently believing they had a chance to date her, one fan took the time to offer his condolences. "Aw what? Some of us didn't know. Sorry to hear," he wrote. "I don't wish that on anyone."

In 2023, Kennedy's long-running talk show was canceled. "I have to say, we had so much fun, even when you weren't watching," she reflected on "Kennedy Saves the World," her podcast through Fox News Radio.  "The stuff you didn't see on TV might have been even more entertaining, at least to the group of us, than what did make it to air. I was really lucky for so long to be around a creative group of people."

The fact that her eponymous show was canceled didn't mean Kennedy ended her relationship with Fox News as a whole. In the wake of the show's cancellation, she announced on social media that "Kennedy Saves the World" would become a daily podcast. "Let's save the world, one podcast at a time," she wrote.

Fans of Kennedy's MTV-era antics will be happy to know that she still has a flair for attention-getting proclamations. Though she no longer leads her own show, she's still a regular contributor on Fox News shows like "The Five" and "Outnumbered," and she's landed herself in hot water several times over the years. For example, on "The Five" in 2018, she joked, "I think we need to set up an 'American Ninja Warrior' obstacle course at the border and whoever can make it — you can't fake it — they get through." Responding to a twitter clip of the quote, one viewer wrote, "Whoa!! Wait......you mean Kennedy still exists?"