Early career Theroux's first employment as a journalist was in the United States with
Metro Silicon Valley, an alternative free weekly newspaper in
San Jose, California. In 1992, he was hired as a writer for the satirical monthly magazine
Spy. He also worked as a correspondent on
Michael Moore's
TV Nation series,
Documentaries ''Louis Theroux's Weird Weekends'' In
Weird Weekends (1998–2000), Theroux followed marginal (mostly American) subcultures such as
survivalists,
black nationalists,
white supremacists, and
porn stars, often by living among or close to the people who were involved in them. His documentary method subtly exposes the contradictions or farcical elements of his subjects' seriously held beliefs. He described the aim of
Weird Weekends as:
When Louis Met... In the series
When Louis Met... (2000–02), Theroux accompanied a different British celebrity in each programme in their daily lives, interviewing them as they go. His episode about British entertainer
Jimmy Savile, entitled
When Louis Met Jimmy, was voted one of the top documentaries of all time in a 2005 survey by Britain's
Channel 4. Some years after the episode was filmed, the
NSPCC described Savile as "one of the most prolific sex offenders" in Great Britain. In an interview in 2015, Theroux expressed his intention to produce a follow-up documentary about Savile for the BBC to explore how the late entertainer had continued his abuse for so long, to meet people he knew closely, and examine his own reflections on his inability to dig more deeply into the first case. This follow-up documentary, titled
Savile, aired on BBC Two on Sunday, 2 October 2016, and lasted 1 hour and 15 minutes. In
When Louis Met the Hamiltons, the former
Conservative MP Neil Hamilton and his wife
Christine were arrested during the course of filming, due to false allegations of indecent assault. In
When Louis Met Max Clifford,
Max Clifford tried to set up Theroux, but he was caught lying as the crew recorded his live microphone during the conversations. After this series concluded, a retrospective called
Life with Louis was released. Theroux made a documentary called
Louis, Martin & Michael about his quest to get an interview with
Michael Jackson in which he lost out to
Martin Bashir, who went on to make the documentary
Living with Michael Jackson. Selected episodes of
When Louis Met... were included as bonus content on a Best-Of collection of
Weird Weekends.
BBC Two specials In these special programmes, beginning in 2003, Theroux returned to American themes, working at feature-length and in a more natural way. In March 2006, he signed a new deal with the BBC to make ten films over the course of three years. Subjects for the specials included criminal gangs in
Lagos,
Neo-Nazis in America,
ultra-Zionists in Israel. He also explored
child psychiatry and the prison systems in California and Florida. A 2007 special,
The Most Hated Family in America, received strong critical praise from the international media.
My Scientology Movie In October 2016, Theroux premiered a
feature-length documentary,
My Scientology Movie. Produced by
Simon Chinn—a school friend of Theroux's—and directed by John Dower, the film covered Theroux attempting to gain access to the secretive
Church of Scientology. It premiered at the
London Film Festival in 2015 and was released in cinemas in the UK on 7 October 2016.
Forbidden America (2022) Forbidden America is a three-part series focusing on social media use in the United States among several groups, including the
alt-right, rappers and pornographic film actors. On the
Extreme and Online, Theroux met the latest incarnation of the American far right: a political movement born out of the internet and increasingly making its presence felt on the political stage. Theroux interviewed
Nick Fuentes and
Baked Alaska.
Interviews In 2022, the BBC announced a series of interviews conducted by Theroux under the title
Louis Theroux Interviews, in which he meets and talks to celebrities from stage, screen and music about their successful careers and their personal lives. The first series started airing weekly on BBC Two on 25 October 2022 and featured interviews from rapper
Stormzy, actress
Dame Judi Dench, musician
YUNGBLUD, adventurer
Bear Grylls, comedian
Katherine Ryan and singer
Rita Ora. The second series of
Louis Theroux Interviews started airing on 7 November 2023 and included interviews from boxer
Anthony Joshua, musician
Pete Doherty, actress
Joan Collins, singer
Raye, activist
Chelsea Manning and actor
Ashley Walters.
The Settlers (2025) Theroux spent time with the growing community of
Israeli religious-nationalist settlers. Their settlements are illegal under international law, but they have been protected by the army, police, government of Israel. Since the start of the
Gaza war, there has been an acceleration in the establishment of settlements. The documentary explored the lives of both prominent settlers and Palestinian activists against a rise in violence against local Palestinian communities and the
October 2023 attack by
Hamas.
Louis Theroux: Inside the Manosphere (2026) Directed by Adrian Choa and presented by Louis Theroux,
Inside the Manosphere is a 2026 feature-length documentary. Released globally on
Netflix on 11 March 2026, the project marked Theroux's debut as a presenter for the streaming platform, following a decades-long career primarily associated with the
BBC. The documentary explored the "
manosphere", an online ecosystem of content creators advocating for hyper-masculinity, "red-pill" philosophy and often controversial views on gender roles.
Producer In 2024, his production company Mindhouse produced a documentary on Netflix about a prolific cyber stalker titled
Can I Tell You a Secret? Books Theroux published his first book,
The Call of the Weird: Travels in American Subcultures, in Britain in 2005. In it, he recounted his return to the United States to learn about the lives of some of the people he had featured in his television programmes. Theroux released a memoir,
Gotta Get Theroux This, in September 2019.
Podcasts In April 2020, during a
COVID-19 lockdown, Theroux started the
BBC Radio 4 podcast
Grounded with Louis Theroux from his home, in which he interviewed well-known people he finds particularly fascinating and to whom he would not necessarily have had a chance to speak before the
COVID-19 pandemic. Beginning on 6 June 2023, he started hosting
The Louis Theroux Podcast as part of an exclusive deal with
Spotify.
Other appearances Theroux made a few appearances on
The Adam and Joe Show and has been a guest many times on
Adam & Joe's radio shows, as well as on
The Adam Buxton Podcast. As part of the
Weird Weekends episode "Porn", Theroux agreed to film a cameo in the 1997
gay pornography film
Take a Peak. He did not perform sexual acts in the film, but made a brief appearance as a park ranger in search of a criminal. In the
Weird Weekends episode "Infomercials", he featured as a live salesman for an at-home paper shredder for the
Home Shopping Network. In December 2015, Theroux captained the team representing
Magdalen College, Oxford on
BBC Four's
Christmas University Challenge. In their first-round match, the team beat the
University of Exeter's team by 220 to 130 and went on to win the tournament. In April 2022, Theroux went
viral after a clip of him on the
YouTube show
Chicken Shop Datein which he performed a short rap he had originally written and performed in the
Weird Weekends episode "
Gangsta Rap" 22 years earlierwas
autotuned by a
TikTok user and turned into a reusable audio track with backing music. The trend saw users lip-syncing to the sound and performing an accompanying dance. It has led to more footage of Theroux's rapping ability being unearthed, leading the BBC to publish an article listing seven times he "proved he was a massive
hip hop head". In May, Theroux released "
Jiggle Jiggle", a full version of the rap which he created alongside
Manchester DJ duo Duke & Jones which sold over 500,000 copies in the US, making it a gold certified single. ==Personal life==