Born in
Seoul,
South Korea, Pak immigrated along with her parents to
California when she was five years old. She grew up in
Union City, California, a
suburb southeast of
San Francisco. Her parents own a small restaurant in downtown
Oakland, California. Pak never planned on a career in television. While attending
James Logan High School, she volunteered for the YMCA program Youth and Government, an organization aimed at involving and educating young people in the political process. She was also a member of the school's
forensics team, in which she did expository speaking. In 1992, she placed 8th in the state of California. She was interviewed for the news by
KGO-TV, the
ABC affiliate in
San Francisco for the show ''Straight Talk 'N Teens
. The program director for another station happened to see the piece and approached her to host the teen-based magazine show First Cut'' on
KRON, the then-
NBC (now MyNetwork TV) affiliate in San Francisco. This "after-school job" became Pak's introduction to the entertainment world. Her first big interview for the show was
Ice-T. While attending the
University of California, Berkeley as a
political science major, Pak was once again discovered, when the producer of a
PBS science show called ''
Newton's Apple saw a tape of her. Following graduation, she was approached by ZDTV, a cable network devoted to technology and the Internet. After a year working on Internet Tonight, a daily half-hour show at ZDTV, she was recruited to be a correspondent on KRON. Looking to move on from San Francisco, she sent in a tape to the start-up cable network Oxygen. After a year-long audition process, she was hired as a host for the show Trackers'' and moved to
New York City. From there,
MTV spotted her and she was soon the first
Asian face of MTV. She has covered the
MTV Movie Awards, the
Sundance Film Festival, and the
MTV Video Music Awards. She also co-hosted, with
Kurt Loder, MTV's pre-
Grammy show. As a correspondent for "MTV Daily News", she has interviewed
Mariah Carey,
*NSYNC,
P. Diddy,
George Lucas,
Jane's Addiction,
Mary J. Blige,
Billy Idol, and
Fred Durst. On March 6, 2012, she hosted
Demi Lovato: Stay Strong — The After Show. Pak hosted her own MTV documentary about multicultural young people called
My Life (Translated). She narrated later seasons of
MTV Cribs and
True Life. In 2007, she appeared on
The Oprah Winfrey Show, revealing that she has struggled with
confidence and
beauty issues for many years. She mainly spoke about her
epicanthal folds, and explained how her family and other Asians believe a
double eyelid is crucial to beauty. She also mentioned how
epicanthoplasty is the top form of
plastic surgery being done in Asia. In 2008, Pak had left MTV News for
Planet Green to host
G Word, which is co-hosted by
Daniel Sieberg. In 2010, Pak returned to MTV News and hosted the VMAs Pre Show. Recently, Pak has been the host for the National Constitution Center's "The Exchange", a program in which high school students discuss their views on relevant constitutional issues. In 2012, Pak was hired as the new on-air correspondent for
DailyCandy, an email newsletter based in New York. In 2016, she co-hosted ''People's List'', a weekly summer primetime
infotainment series associated with
People magazine on
ABC. In 2019, Pak served as the 'Tell All' host for season 3 of
Sister Wives. In October 2020, it was announced that Pak would be joining
Lemonada Media's podcast slate as the co-host of the new show
Add to Cart alongside comedian and actress
Kulap Vilaysack. The podcast launched on November 17, 2020 and is “a subversive and fun way about talking about consumerism, and how we all participate in it.” In 2021, Pak resumed her role as narrator of MTV Cribs. == Personal life ==