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Leah Remini has enjoyed a prolific career in the entertainment industry — both before and after ”Dancing with the Stars.”
The season 17 contestant turned guest co-host logged her first TV acting credit in 1988 in a guest spot on the sitcom “Head of the Class,” per IMDb. One year later, she had a lead role on the “Who’s the Boss?” spinoff “Living Dolls,” an ABC sitcom about teen models. Remini made appearances in a long list of TV shows before getting her big sitcom break with a long-running role on the CBS sitcom “The King of Queens” from 1998 to 2007.
In more recent years, Remini has tried her hand as a talk show host, a game show host, and a host and executive producer for the documentary “Scientology and the Aftermath,” the latter of which scored her two Primetime Emmy Awards, per Emmys.com.
“Dancing with the Stars” brought Remini in front of a whole new audience, but it was decades earlier that she first realized she was famous.
Leah Remini Revealed She First Felt Famous More Than 30 Years Ago When She Came Face-to-Face With an Unexpected Fan
Some fans may not realize that Remini was a teen actress. She was still in her teens in the late 1980s when she appeared in “Head of the Class” and several episodes of “Who’s the Boss?”
In a January 2022 Instagram post, Remini shared her first professional headshot from age 16. “I auditioned but was repeatedly told that my brash approach, and thick Brooklyn accent, was taking me nowhere fast,” she revealed in the caption. “It wasn’t until a voice teacher and casting director discouraged me from losing my brashness and accent that I started getting acting gigs.”
Once she started getting gigs, the fame came fast.
In an “Ask Me Anything” with fans on her Instagram story on June 14, 2022, Remini answered a fan who asked her, “When did you realize how famous you are…like that one moment where you are like ‘omg I’m kind of a big deal.’”
Remini revealed that the big moment came in the 1980s, well before her “King of Queens” or DWTS fame. But at first, she was ready to fight because she had no idea it was a fan who was staring at her.
“I was at Disneyland with my sister and some girls were looking at us and we thought they were being shady,” Remini wrote. ”So we brought the Bensonhurst, Brooklyn energy out. ‘Yo, you want some of this?’ And then one of them asked, ‘Are you from ‘Living Dolls?’”
Leah Remini Reveals Things She Still Wants to Do in Her Career
In another AMA response, Remini answered a fan who asked her what inspired her to get involved with the game show “People Puzzler,” which she began hosting in 2021.
“I never hosted game show and I wanted to do something fun,” Remini told her fans of the Game Show Network crossword puzzle-style show.
Remini previously told People she gave an instant “yes” when approached to host “People Puzzler.”
“[I was] dealing with the aftermath of producing and hosting my A&E documentary series on Scientology, on top of it being a very dark time in our country,” she explained. “So when something like this comes along, I feel like it’s a blessing. I just love connecting with people.”
Remini recently snagged another dream job when she was announced as a judge for the new season of “So You Think You Can Dance?”
But in her AMA, Remini also revealed that she has at least one more major career goal on her bucket list. “Broadway!” she wrote.
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