- Ken Jeong is an actor, known for his roles in movies like ‘The Hangover’ and also as a panelist on ‘The Masked Singer.’
- He’s been married to Tran Jeong for 19 years.
- They have twin daughters.
Ken Jeong is one of the most beloved comedic actors of the aughts and 2010s. After breaking out with his role in Knocked Up, Ken began performing in more comedic movies, including The Hangover trilogy, which he’s probably best known for. He did have roles in other popular comedies, like Step Brothers, and he also starred in the sitcom Community. Most recently, Ken has been one of the panelists for The Masked Singer, which is currently in its 10th season.
By his side through his whole comedic journey has been his wife, Tran Ho. Ken and his wife have been married since 2004, and it’s clear that she’s very supportive of his many different projects. Find out more about Tran and their marriage here!
How Did Ken Meet Tran?
Before Ken was a breakout TV and movie star, he made his living in a very different way. He was a doctor, performing internal medicine at a hospital in the Woodland Hills area of Los Angeles. While he worked as a physician, he continued performing standup comedy and even scored some acting roles while he was working as a doctor.
The hospital was also where he ended up meeting Tran. While they worked in different departments, Ken admitted that they would occasionally pass each other, and he thought she was “very pretty.” He said that they hit it off at a happy hour for young doctors on the Death, Sex, and Money podcast in 2015. “She was really the first person I ever met that made me laugh so hard. She’s just so funny. We really bonded by our love of comedy. You don’t meet a lot of people in medicine, much less date them, who like that, but we had that in common,” he said of their first meeting.
The pair clearly hit it off, because they ended up getting married in 2004, and they’ve been together ever since!
She’s also a Doctor
It should come as no surprise since they worked in the hospital, but Tran is also a doctor. While Ken was an in internal medicine doctor, her profession is family medicine. Even though Ken left the medical world, she’s still a practicing family physician.
She Pushed Ken to Pursue His Acting Dreams
While making the leap from medicine to acting may not be the most secure career move, The Hangover star admitted that his wife pushed him to go full-time into acting. “In the middle of the most challenging time of our lives, Tran stood strong for our family and encouraged me to pursue my dream of leaving behind my career as a doctor to become a comedian,” Ken wrote in a 2011 HuffPost column. “I don’t know how many wives would encourage that kind of insanity. But I was lucky mine did.”
Tran has also served as the inspiration for so much of Ken’s comedy. In fact, his special You Complete Me, Ho is a reference to his wife’s maiden name, Ho. He joked that with her last name, she was a “comedian’s dream,” and she was okay with him making jokes about her on the Death, Sex, and Money podcast.
Ken’s wife was also a very key part in one of the most memorable moments for his most iconic role. When Ken appeared naked as Mr. Chow in The Hangover, he revealed that he got the okay from her before speaking to the director. “I got her permission. I’m not stupid,” he told People in 2011. “In fact, she said this will be a feel-good movie because every guy will go home feeling good about themselves.”
They Have 2 Kids
In addition to being a great husband, Ken is also a loving father to two teenage girls. Tran gave birth to twin daughters, Zooey and Alexa, both 16, in 2007. Zooey may end up following in her dad’s footsteps. She made a guest appearance in four episodes of his sitcom, Dr. Ken.
She’s a Breast Cancer Survivor
Shortly after Tran became a mom, she went through one of the most terrifying experiences anyone can go through. She found a lump on her breast while she was breast-feeding the twins, which they later learned was breast cancer. Since they were both doctors, they both kept an eye on the lump and later had it checked for cancer, even though she initially thought it was “benign.” After learning that it was cancer, Ken admitted that he was wrecked in an interview with Coping magazine. “I was immediately in tears,” he said. “I was trying to hide it from Tran. I remember […] just being in shock. All the emotions that are available, I felt.”
Tran admitted that her family kept her hopeful during her cancer battle. “I was really happy that I had the girls, that I was married, that I had Ken. I felt like I had already lived such a great life and it was a miracle. I did feel like I was going to survive, but I also felt like it was OK,” she told Coping. “[The twins] kept my eyes on the prize.”
Ken said that he stood by his wife throughout her battle, and he praised her for how strong she was through treatment. “She fought back against cancer with everything she had for our girls, so that they would grow up knowing a mother’s love, a mother’s instinct, a mother’s touch,” he wrote in HuffPost.
Thankfully, Tran is cancer-free, and Ken called the moment he learned that she had beat breast cancer “the greatest moment of my life.”