During Jimmy Kimmel Live!, Lisa Ling revealed some unusual insights into her strange experience. Who was she in a relationship with at that time? Let’s discover!
Lisa Ling – An Exceptional Host
Lisa Ling is a renowned journalist from the United States. She is not only a journalist but also a popular television personality and author.
At present, she is hosting a CNN program, This Is Life with Lisa Ling. Her journey began as a reporter on Channel One News and she also co-hosted the daytime talk show The View, which aired on American Broadcasting Channel.
Lisa Ling also hosted National Geographic Explorer from 2003 to 2010, and later became a special correspondent for The Oprah Winfrey Show. In 2011, she commenced hosting her own show Our America with Lisa Long on the Oprah Winfrey Network.
Lisa J. Ling: A Bit More About Her
Lisa Ling was born on August 30, 1973, in Sacramento, California. She is fluent in Spanish. Her family is well-educated and has been leading a comfortable life in Cali.
Her mother’s name is Mary Mei-yan (née Wang). She is a Taiwanese immigrant from Tainan, Taiwan. Her mother worked as the director of the Formosan Association for Public Affairs in Los Angeles.
And her father’s name is Chung Teh “Douglas” Ling. He is a Chinese immigrant who was born in Hong Kong in 1937. Lisa’s paternal grandmother was born on the island of Labuan, which is now part of Malaysia.
In the 1930s, her paternal grandfather, a native of Guangzhou, Guangdong, was among the first Chinese students to be able to study in the United States.
He earned a master’s degree in business administration from the University of Colorado and also got a graduate degree from New York University. He struggled financially and also searched for jobs in the United States, and in Folsom, California, he ultimately founded the first Chinese restaurant.
Parents’ Separation
At the age of seven, Lisa Ling’s parents separated. After their separation, her father raised her and her sister in Carmichael, California, a city west of Sacramento. Connie Chung was Ling’s idol and she aspired to be a journalist.
Taking Pride In Her Work
Lisa Ling joined a nationally syndicated teenage news program and became one of the hosts of Scratch when she was 16 years old. She decided to join Channel One News, a youth-oriented news network that is broadcast in many American primary and secondary schools, two years later.
Ling was considered one of the youngest reporters on the channel, reporting from more than a dozen nations and eventually rising to become the network’s senior war correspondent when she turned 25.
She worked as a war reporter in Iraq and Afghanistan, among other places. For her journalism and documentaries, she received multiple accolades. Ling studied at the University of Southern California while she was working for Channel One.
Lisa’s sister, journalist Laura Ling, was imprisoned in North Korea for many months in 2009 after being found guilty of unlawfully entering the country, and the sisters then eventually collaborated on the book Somewhere Inside: One Sister’s Captivity in North Korea and the Other’s Fight to Bring Her Home.
Lisa Ling’s reporting on bride burning in India, Gang rape in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, child trafficking in Ghana, the rapid aftermath of Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans, and the Virginia Tech Massacre in April 2007 are among the best stories she has covered so far.
She was a journalist who followed illegal shark fishing in Costa Rica, elephant hunting in Chad, and showed one of the fights for oil control in Nigeria from the inside. Ling co-founded the website SecretSocietyOfWomen.com in 2010, a platform for women where they can openly discuss their difficulties anonymously.
She was lauded not just in the United States, but also internationally. She has left her mark in journalism’s annals by serving with compassion. She takes pride in her work and is dedicated to it.
Her ADHD Diagnosis
Lisa Ling identifies herself as a “die-hard feminist.” She was 40 when she was diagnosed with attention deficit disorder (ADHD) herself in 2014 whilst reporting on the prevalence of the disorder.
However, Ling is of the type that isn’t hyperactive. Ling feels that her lifelong attention difficulties contributed to the development of her successful career in journalism.
It all started during a program on ADHD, where Ling spoke with a specialist on how millions of children are affected by attention difficulties.
Ling mentioned how she struggled with attention as a child. After that, she had her own attention capabilities tested. The doctor verified what Ling had thought for a long time, and told her that she met the ADHD criteria.
Is Lisa Ling Married?
The answer is, ‘Yes.’ Through mutual friends, Lisa Ling met businessman and future Miami Beach mayor Philip Levine in 2004. On February 18, 2005, they began dating and became engaged.
Their relationship ended in October of the same year because of Lisa Ling. She told People Magazine that the major reason for their split was their hectic schedules, particularly her job’s frequent foreign trips.
Lisa confirmed her engagement to radiation oncologist Paul Song on January 3, 2007. The couple shortly after their engagement, tied a knot in Los Angeles, California, on May 26, 2007.
On Anderson Cooper’s talk show in October 2012, Ling revealed that she and her hubby were having their first baby girl. Jett Ling Song was born on March 8, 2013, to her and her husband.
On June 6, 2016, she welcomed her second child, a daughter called Ray Ling Song. Santa Monica, California, is where the family calls home.
Lisa Ling Shared a Strange Story of Her Recent Relationship
Nearly two decades ago, when Ling was hosting The View show in her 20’s, Prince, a renowned singer, was apparently a fan of the show and took an interest in Ling.
His assistant spoke with Ling on a call and then Prince also spoke to her. Ling, who was already a fan, was surprised. He bought her TLC concert tickets, and she agreed. Prince also asked her to meet him at the hotel where he was staying under the name Karl Marx.
Ling and Prince ended up discussing philosophy until five a.m. The next day, the same thing happened. Jimmy Kimmel Live! aired a segment about it. Lisa talked about her brief exchange with Prince.
“The next day I went back and was doing my job at The View, and I was talking on-air about someone that I dated a long time ago. And I got a call at 5 o’clock the next morning, and it was Prince calling himself … who asked, ‘Who were you talking about?’ ‘I was talking about someone in my past,’ I said.”, according to Ling.
“As though we were, like, we had a relationship or something,” Ling said to Kimmel. “But I was talking about someone in my past. And that was it. He never called me. That was my relationship with Prince.”
