The Stunning Transformation Of Charissa Thompson

American sports fans are certainly familiar with Charissa Thompson, a sports reporter who's best known for covering the NFL for a variety of outlets. These have ranged from Fox Sports to ESPN to Prime Video. As the host of "Fox NFL Kickoff," a weekly Sunday pregame show, she moderates all manner of football-based discussions with a panel of expert NFL analysts. 

While sportscasting may be what Thompson is best known for, it's by no means her only area of pursuit. She's also a podcaster (she and fellow sports reporter Erin Andrews have teamed up for their popular podcast, "Calm Down with Erin and Charissa"), an on-air correspondent for entertainment news show "Extra," and has even dipped her toe into the world of interior design — don't be surprised if she winds up having her own  home-decor show airing on HGTV at some point.

But how did a young girl with big dreams wind up making them all come true? Her journey has been a fascinating one, and will be revealed by reading further to experience the stunning transformation of Charissa Thompson.

Charissa Thompson's journey began in the Pacific Northwest. Born and raised in Seattle, Thompson was something of a jock while growing up; in fact, she excelled in three sports, lettering in basketball, track, and volleyball. 

Interviewed by Seattle Met, Thompson, the youngest of three kids, revealed the origin story of her unique first name. As she recalled, her parents were at a loss for what to name her when she arrived. "My mom was like, 'I don't care, just name her something.' So my dad is like, Well I got this name: Charissa.' She says, 'Where did you get that?' and he's like, 'Uh, Sports Illustrated?'" she recalled. The story didn't end there, though. Later, her father revealed that he'd borrowed the name from a model who'd sported a bikini in one of the Sports Illustrated swimsuit editions. "She was some redhead," Thompson said of her namesake. "I actually like it now. It's original."

Even as a kid, Thompson envisioned a future for herself in sports journalism. When she was 11, she shot an audition tape of sorts, in which she conducted a mock interview with her brother. "And I pretended he was [former Seattle Mariners left fielder] Jay Buhner," she said in an interview for Fox Sports. "So I interviewed him with a paper towel roll and a tennis ball as a microphone. I've always wanted to do this job."

After high school, Charissa Thompson headed west for college, attending UC Santa Barbara in California. While she majored in law and society at college, sports journalism was always her real goal. 

"I was working as a receptionist at my first job out of college, and I was miserable," she told Seattle Met. When she heard about a gig in Los Angeles with Fox Sports — not, as she'd dreamed, on camera, but as a receptionist in the network's human resources department — she nevertheless jumped at the chance to get one step closer to realizing her dream. After tanking the interview, she later came clean with her interviewer. "So I said, "Here's the deal: I want to be in sports broadcasting. But I will give you a year, and I will be a great assistant. I will do anything you want.' And he just started laughing." When he later hired her, he told her that it was her honesty that impressed him most. 

Each day after work, she'd head up to the production department, where she learned how to edit tape and even practiced her on-camera delivery in front of a green screen. In time, she took a job with Fox Sports Net Rocky Mountain as a production assistant in Denver. When a fill-in host was needed for the channel's Colorado Rockies show, she jumped at the chance to step in. She proved to be a natural in front of the camera — something that did not go unnoticed by executives at Fox Sports back in L.A.

After seeing her on the air, Fox Sports executives approached her about returning to Los Angeles to take on an expanded role with the network as an on-camera presence. Suddenly, she became a regular on "Best Damn Sports Show Period," in addition to becoming a sideline reporter, covering both NFL (including appearances on the Fox network's "NFL on Fox") and college football for the Big Ten Network.

It didn't take Thompson long to shine in her new role. "As the freshest face on Fox Sports' 'Best Damn Sports Show Period,' Charissa Thompson is one of the studio's fast-rising stars," gushed TV Week in 2008. For her part, Thompson was still trying to accept her new reality. "I keep waiting for someone to pinch me and tell me the dream is over, that I have to go back to having a real job," she told the outlet. "The opportunities I've been afforded are so wide-ranging and interesting ... that it never stops being fun and challenging."

For the next few years, Fox Sports remained Thompson's home. As her star rose, Thompson was tapped to cover some of America's biggest sporting events. That, however, was just the beginning.

As a woman in a male-dominated industry, Charissa Thompson has always been keenly aware that her physical appearance is a part of why she appears in front of the camera. "You get in the door of the sports business by being a woman, and you stay there by being good at your job," she told Seattle Met. During that interview, she also acknowledged the brutal reality that the shelf life of a woman in sports broadcasting can be brief. "In a couple years there's going to be another 24-year-old hot chick that used to be a cheerleader at Oregon who wants to get into sports broadcasting," she mused. "That's the way it goes."

Thompson experienced the inherent sexism built into her job early on, when she decided on a whim to dye her blond hair dark. "I was just sick of being blond and I wanted rid myself of the Barbie thing," she told HBO's "Real Sports." While her intent in changing her hair color and wearing glasses was to be taken seriously as a journalist, she instead found herself relentlessly mocked for it. A particularly brutal Deadspin headline, in fact, declared, "Charissa Thompson Continues Down Suicidal Path to Frumpyville." 

She eventually changed back to blond but had learned a harsh lesson in the process. "Now, I am doing this for credibility and I'm not getting the credibility, I am just getting attention now for being ugly," she explained.

While being hired by Fox Sports may have initially seemed like the culmination of Charissa Thompson's dream, in truth it was just a launching pad. In 2011, she took the next big step in her career progression when she left Fox Sports and took a job with ESPN. In this new role, Thompson would be co-hosting a new show for the sports network, "Numbers Never* Lie," alongside Michael Smith. 

The show featured the hosts leading guests in discussions involving sports analytics, with figures from the world of fantasy sports regularly weighing in. "'Numbers Never* Lie' was developed for the fan craving statistics, whether it is the traditional box score or in-depth fantasy analysis," ESPN's Marcia Keegan described the show in a press release.

The following year, Thompson was tapped to replace Michelle Beadle as co-host of ESPN's "SportsNation." "I love that you can be you on 'SN.' I can make a complete fool out of myself, which isn't hard to do," she said in an ESPN interview. "It's free-flowing fun format is right up my alley!"

In the midst of her ESPN gig," Charissa Thompson also ventured out in search of new television opportunities. One of those emerged in 2012 when she was partnered with former "Blossom" star Joey Lawrence to co-host a new celebrity-driven reality competition for ABC (which, like ESPN, is owned by Disney). Initially called "Celebrity Diving," the show was retitled "Splash" when it finally premiered in March 2013. 

The show was a perfect fit for Thompson's dual experience in sports and entertainment, in that it followed the progress of a gaggle of celebrities as they trained in diving. As Thompson subsequently told USA Today's For the Win, the biggest problem she had with the show was the height of her co-host. "If I had to wear one more pair of kitten heels next to Joey," she joked. "It was like, 'Joey, put some lifts in your shoes. Let me hold you. What do you want from me?' I was towering over him."

Charissa Thompson didn't hang around ESPN for long. In May 2013 — less than two years after she'd been hired — she exited in order to return to her original home, Fox Sports. She was hired to host "Fox NFL Kickoff," and she also secured another gig that had nothing to do with the world of sports: a correspondent on "Extra." As Thompson explained to USA Today's For the Win, her deal with Fox Sports required exclusivity on anything sports-related; when it came to entertainment, however, she was free to do whatever came along. "I'm completely open and have entertained doing other stuff, no pun intended, whether it's during the day or on weekends because for me, the more I can do the better," she said. 

Celebrity journalism proved to be a somewhat different experience than reporting on sports — something she hilariously detailed when she was asked by Seattle Met to recall something she's said on "Extra" that made her cringe. "'Kim Kardashian dyed her hair blonde!"' she declared. "I wanna shoot myself when I read that, because I couldn't care less what color her hair is. But I understand that some people do."

In 2017, reports emerged claiming that Thompson might once again quit Fox Sports for a job at ESPN, when she was reportedly in the running to take over ESPN's "NFL Sunday Countdown" after the retirement of longtime host Chris Berman; however, that didn't end up happening. Thompson remained with Fox Sports, and in 2018 she added hosting "NFL Films Presents" to her list of on-air duties.

In 2016, Charissa Thompson landed another non-sports television opportunity when she was tapped to host a new Netflix athletic competition, "Ultimate Beastmaster." Produced by action hero extraordinaire Sylvester Stallone, the show featured top athletes from all over the world tackling a grueling obstacle course known as "The Beast." Thompson was teamed up with former NFL player Terry Crews to host the U.S. version (one of six different versions, each specific to a different country).

While "Ultimate Beastmaster" was compared to NBC's "American Ninja Warrior" — and not inaccurately — Thompson's hosting skills shone through. Or at least that was the opinion of Entertainment Weekly's James Hibberd, who favorably contrasted her and Crews with their various international counterparts. "Thompson is probably the best of the bunch because she's not overcooking it," Hibberd wrote, while also poking Crews for his tendency to solemnly intone "into the blood" every time one of the contestants falls into the pool beneath the monster-shaped course.

Charissa Thompson made headlines in 2018 when she became one of numerous celebrities to have personal — and highly sensitive — photos unleashed onto the internet after being hacked. "It is a disgusting invasion of Ms. Thompson's privacy, and we are working with law enforcement authorities to ensure that those responsible for hacking her account and publishing her photos are brought to justice," her attorney, Andrew Brettler, told the New York Daily News. 

A few months later, during an interview with The New York Times' "The Athletic" podcast, she opened up about the horrific invasion of privacy she'd experienced. "When it comes to your physical being and intimate photos between you and your boyfriend and things that you sent to someone when you were in a long-distance relationship and in love, it is your private property. So it felt — the obvious — like such an invasion."

In addition, she also discussed the extreme measures she was forced to take in order to combat the hack and try to reclaim her privacy in its wake. "But then the depths I am still taking to get back that privacy are unbelievable," she added. "The way I equate is someone came into my home, robbed my home of all its possessions, put it out in the cul-de-sac right in front of me, and I had to buy all of it right back to put back in my house."

Sports journalism, entertainment reporting, and reality television hosting are far from the only talents that Charissa Thompson has put on display. In 2020, she brought a whole new set of skills to the table when she announced the launch of House & Home, her own boutique interior design firm. As the company's website explained, Thompson had been designing homes for friends, as well as for herself, as a hobby and decided to put all the experience she'd gained to use.

Speaking with Architectural Digest about her new sideline, Thompson was very clear about the goals she'd set forth for House & Home. "We're not here to make a ton of money," she explained. "Our goal is to turn your house into a home. We like to equate our company to fashion, so instead of couture clothing you're never going to buy, you go after a practical quality alternative."

In early 2020, Charissa Thompson announced that she'd gotten engaged to Kyle Thousand, a sports agent who served as the first-ever baseball agent for Roc Nation — aka the entertainment company owned by rapper/mogul (and let's not forget husband of Beyoncé) Jay-Z. The couple made their announcement in a since-deleted Instagram post, as reported by the New York Post. 

In late 2021, the couple tied the knot. This marked the second marriage for Thompson, who first married when she was 24, but that relationship ended fairly quickly. "The day was perfect," Thompson wrote on Instagram, revealing that the pandemic resulted in a small, intimate ceremony. "Sadly we couldn't invite all our friends and family due to [COVID-19], but we didn't want to wait any longer to start our lives together," she revealed.

Sadly, the marriage didn't last long. In April 2022, less than a year and a half after the date of the nuptials, Thompson filed for divorce. According to court documents obtained by The Blast, the ever-popular "irreconcilable differences" was listed as the reason for the split, and there were no demands of spousal support from either party. 

Throughout most of her career, Charissa Thompson's tenure as a sports journalist had been pretty much free on controversy. That trend reversed in 2023, however, over some shocking comments she made while appearing on the "Pardon My Take" podcast. Thompson admitted that when she wasn't able to speak with a coach in time to file a report, she'd simply make up a quote. As one might expect, her admission sent shockwaves through the world of sports journalism, with many of her peers pointing out how wrong and unprofessional it is to fabricate quotes.

It didn't take long for Thompson to realize that what she'd felt to be a harmless anecdote could actually shatter her entire career. She attempted some damage control when she took to Instagram to explain herself in a since-deleted post. "I have never lied about anything or been unethical during my time as a sports broadcaster," she wrote (via Time), and offered some clarification: "In the absence of a coach providing any information that could further my report I would use information that I learned and saw during the first half to create my report. For example, if a team was. 0 for 7 on 3rd down, that would clearly be an area they need to improve on in the second half," she said.

Throughout 2024, no power couple generated more headlines than pop music sensation Taylor Swift and Super Bowl-winning Kansas City Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce. As for who's responsible for this epic coupling, Charissa Thompson and her pal/podcast partner Erin Andrews are more than happy to take credit. 

"Yes, Jimmy, we are responsible," Thompson jokingly declared while she and Andrews appeared on "The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon." Andrews added, "We're friends with him, and how could you not be? The guy's a time." She continued, saying, "He had mentioned on his podcast that he went to the show, had wanted to meet her afterwards, didn't get the chance to. So we just started talking about it on our podcast, saying, 'Taylor, do this for America. Date him.' The guy, he's not ugly by any means." Thompson quipped, "We'll take the credit."

Their entreaties to Swift apparently did the trick. Kelce himself acknowledged the podcasting duo's pleas after they posted a clip from the show. "You two are something else!!" Kelce wrote (via Fox News). "I owe you big time!!"