Samantha Jamie Bee (born 1969) is a Canadian actress and comedian best known as a correspondent for The Daily Show with Jon Stewart.
Bee was born in Toronto, Ontario. She received a degree from the University of Ottawa, and studied science at McGill University in Montreal and acting at George Brown Theatre School in Toronto. She was one of the four founding members of Toronto-based sketch comedy troupe The Atomic Fireballs, whom she performed with before being hired by the award-winning Daily Show in 2003.
On The Daily Show, Bee has demonstrated an ability to coax people into caricaturing themselves — particularly in segments like "Kill Drill", on hunters and fossil fuel executives claiming to be environmentalists; "They So Horny" on the dearth of Asian men in U.S. pornography; "Tropical Repression," on Ed Heeney, a Florida politician running his campaign based on opposition to gay rights; "The Undecided", an over-the-top look at the infamous undecided voters leading up to the 2004 U.S. presidential elections; and "Samantha Bee's So You Want To Bee A..." report series, which humorously caricatures the way in which one can easily obtain a certain job, like becoming a 527 group. Her segment on "NILFs" ("News I'd Like to F#@k"), discussing the sexiness of news anchors is one of her most memorable: "CNN has the wholesome girl-next-door NILFs, the kind you can bring home to meet your mother. MSNBC has the dirty-over-30 NILFs. FOX has the filthy NILFs who will report anything. They're the Hustler of NILFs."
Bee played the title role in a live action production of Sailor Moon at the Canadian National Exhibition, and has had guest appearances on several television shows. She had her first starring role in a feature film in 2004 with the Canadian independent film Ham & Cheese, alongside veteran Canadian comics Scott Thompson and Dave Foley.
Until the recent debut of Kristen Schaal in March 2008, Bee was the sole female correspondent on The Daily Show since 2006. She was The Daily Show's first non-U.S. citizen correspondent. Bee was recognized with a 2005 Canadian Comedy Award for Best Female TV Performance for her work on The Daily Show. In 2007, she made a guest appearance on the hit CBC sitcom Little Mosque on the Prairie, portraying a Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) agent in town on a 'fishing trip'.
Bee is married to actor and fellow Daily Show correspondent Jason Jones. She lives in Manhattan, and she has indicated her intention to work toward U.S. citizenship. In late 2005, Jones became a freelance Daily Show correspondent while Bee reduced her workload due to her pregnancy. In January 2006, the couple welcomed their first child, Piper Bee-Jones. Bee returned to The Daily Show in March 2006.
On January 24, 2008, Bee announced a second pregnancy on air during a bit about the media's coverage of the presidential campaign.
On June 20, 2008, Bee and husband Jason Jones welcomed their second child, Fletcher.
In December 2005, on The O'Reilly Factor, Bill O'Reilly used a clip of Bee from The Daily Show as an example of "The War on Christmas," presenting it as having aired recently. The clip (a parody community events calendar) featured Bee mentioning how Christmas was the only religious holiday that's also a federal holiday in the United States, with O'Reilly talking about "Secular Central...excuse me, Comedy Central". Jon Stewart discussed this on the air, claiming he couldn't recall doing that piece. Stewart invited Bee out, and unlike the clip aired on Factor, Bee was visibly several months pregnant. Though the two were coy insofar as explicitly mentioning her pregnancy, Bee joked it was obvious that the footage O'Reilly aired was a year old (it originally aired in 2004) because she had slightly different highlights in her hair, before stating that her water had just broken.
On January 20, 2008, Bee participated in the CBC game show Test The Nation. She finished as the highest scoring celebrity on the show.
