Geraldo Rivera

Geraldo Michael Rivera (born Gerald Michael Rivera; July 4, 1943) is an American talk show host and political commentator who worked at the Fox News Channel from 2001 to 2023. He hosted the tabloid talk show Geraldo from 1987 to 1998. He gained publicity with the live 1986 TV special The Mystery of Al Capone's Vaults. Rivera hosted the news magazine program Geraldo at Large, hosts the occasional broadcast of Geraldo Rivera Reports (in lieu of hosting At Large). He served as a rotating co-host of The Five from 2022 to 2023.

Geraldo Michael Rivera was born Gerald Michael Rivera at Beth Israel Medical Center on July 4, 1943, in New York City, the son of Lillian (née Friedman; 1924–2018) and Cruz "Allen" Rivera (1915–1987), a restaurant worker and taxicab driver respectively. He is of Galician ancestry through his father, who was from Puerto Rico. His mother was Ashkenazi Jewish, while his father was Roman Catholic. Rivera was raised "mostly Jewish" and had a bar mitzvah ceremony. He grew up in Brooklyn and West Babylon, New York, where he attended West Babylon High School. Rivera's family was sometimes subjected to prejudice and racism, and his mother took to spelling their surname as "Riviera" to avoid having bigotry directed at them, although Riviera, Ribeira, Rivera, and Ribera are variations of the same name as spelled by Galician, Italian and Portuguese families.