Jake Sasseville (born November 30, 1985) is the CEO and Co-Founder of Imiloa Institute.
He is also a television personality who hosted, produced and created talk shows and variety shows from 2007-2015, such as ''The Edge with Jake Sasseville'' and ''Late Night Republic with Jake Sasseville'', on various
ABC
ABC are the first three letters of the Latin script known as the alphabet.
ABC or abc may also refer to:
Arts, entertainment, and media Broadcasting
* American Broadcasting Company, a commercial U.S. TV broadcaster
** Disney–ABC Television ...
,
The CW
''The'' () is a grammatical article in English, denoting persons or things already mentioned, under discussion, implied or otherwise presumed familiar to listeners, readers, or speakers. It is the definite article in English. ''The'' is the m ...
, and
FOX
Foxes are small to medium-sized, omnivorous mammals belonging to several genera of the family Canidae. They have a flattened skull, upright, triangular ears, a pointed, slightly upturned snout, and a long bushy tail (or ''brush'').
Twelve sp ...
television affiliates.
Since 2014, he has hosted the award winning ''The Jake Sasseville Show'', a podcast having an audience of one million listeners and called "the intersection of Culture and Consciousness" by the ''
Huffington Post
''HuffPost'' (formerly ''The Huffington Post'' until 2017 and sometimes abbreviated ''HuffPo'') is an American progressive news website, with localized and international editions. The site offers news, satire, blogs, and original content, and ...
''.
Early life
![Jake Sasseville at his biggest in 2003](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/46/Jake_Sasseville_at_his_biggest_in_2003.jpg)
Sasseville was born in
Lewiston, Maine
Lewiston (; ; officially the City of Lewiston, Maine) is List of cities in Maine, the second largest city in Maine and the most central city in Androscoggin County, Maine, Androscoggin County. The city lies halfway between Augusta, Maine, August ...
and grew up in
Auburn, Maine
Auburn is a city in south-central Maine within the United States. The city serves as the county seat of Androscoggin County. The population was 24,061 at the 2020 census. Auburn and its sister city Lewiston are known locally as the Twin Cities ...
,
one of two principal cities of and included in the
Lewiston-Auburn, Maine metropolitan statistical area.
At age 13, Sasseville took up magic, taking lessons weekly with local Maine magician Bob Nixon. He began performing card magic and stage magic a few months later. Television shows passed on the young Sasseville as guest; despite that, at age 14, he was one of the youngest people to join the
Society of American Magicians
The Society of American Magicians (S.A.M.) is the oldest fraternal magic organization in the world. Its purpose is "to advance, elevate, and preserve magic as a performing art, to promote harmonious fellowship throughout the world of magic, and t ...
. Sasseville attended
Edward Little High School
Edward Little High School is a public high school in Auburn, Maine, United States that was first established as Lewiston Falls Academy in 1835. Philanthropist Edward Little donated and considerable money to the academy, which was named in his h ...
in Auburn,
and continued performing magic throughout high school to fund his own local access television show.
While in high school, Sasseville left the US when he was 15 to study abroad in France. After graduating, Sasseville enrolled in the
New York Institute of Technology
The New York Institute of Technology (NYIT or New York Tech) is a private research university founded in 1955. It has two main campuses in New York—one in Old Westbury, on Long Island, and one in Manhattan. Additionally, it has a cybersecu ...
. He then transferred from the Institute to
Marymount Manhattan College
Marymount Manhattan College is a private college on the Upper East Side of New York City. As of 2020, enrollment consists of 1,571 undergraduates with women making up 80.1% and men 19.9% of student enrollment. The college was founded in 1936.
Hi ...
in New York City for two and a half years. He dropped out of college to pursue his career full time, becoming the youngest host in recorded late night TV history after
Jimmy Kimmel
James Christian Kimmel (born November 13, 1967) is an American television host, comedian, writer, and producer. He is the host and executive producer of ''Jimmy Kimmel Live!'', a late-night talk show that premiered on ABC on January 26, 2003, ...
at age 22.
Career
Television talk shows
Sasseville's television talk career primarily focused on a reality-talk formula, such as seen on the news/talk program "
The Edge
David Howell Evans (born 8 August 1961), better known as the Edge or simply Edge,McCormick (2006), pp. 21, 23–24 is an English-born Irish musician, singer, and songwriter. He is best known as the lead guitarist, keyboardist, and backing voca ...
". In 2008, Sasseville began hosting ''
The Edge with Jake Sasseville'' which ran from 2008–2010.
In 2008, Sasseville launched the
crowd sourced
Crowdsourcing involves a large group of dispersed participants contributing or producing goods or services—including ideas, votes, micro-tasks, and finances—for payment or as volunteers. Contemporary crowdsourcing often involves digita ...
-funded late night talk show ''Late Night Republic'' on
The CW
''The'' () is a grammatical article in English, denoting persons or things already mentioned, under discussion, implied or otherwise presumed familiar to listeners, readers, or speakers. It is the definite article in English. ''The'' is the m ...
and
FOX
Foxes are small to medium-sized, omnivorous mammals belonging to several genera of the family Canidae. They have a flattened skull, upright, triangular ears, a pointed, slightly upturned snout, and a long bushy tail (or ''brush'').
Twelve sp ...
television.
That same year, the ''New York Observer''s Spencer Morgan called Sasseville "a most un-PC talk show host".
In 2012, Sasseville created the
ABC Family
The American cable television, cable and satellite television network that is now known as Freeform (TV channel), Freeform was originally launched as the CBN Satellite Service on April 29, 1977, and has gone through several different owners (and s ...
show, "Delusions of Grandeur", which had elements of reality television and sitcom television combined.
While performing as the show's host, Sasseville also was the executive producer of ''
Late Night Republic
''Late Night Republic'' is an American syndicated late-night television talk show. It is hosted by 24-year-old Jake Sasseville, who also serves as an executive producer. The show features celebrity and "on the street" interviews by Sasseville, sket ...
'' on CW and Fox which ran from 2010–2012,. In 2012, Sasseville was named by the
White House
The White House is the official residence and workplace of the president of the United States. It is located at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW in Washington, D.C., and has been the residence of every U.S. president since John Adams in 1800. ...
as one of the top entrepreneurs in America.
As part of his different talk shows, Sasseville conducted off-beat interviews—including a variety of locations and odd pairings. Guests have included actor
Rainn Wilson
Rainn Percival Dietrich Wilson (born January 20, 1966) is an American actor, comedian, podcaster, producer, and writer. He is best known for his role as Dwight Schrute on the NBC sitcom ''The Office'', for which he earned three consecutive Emm ...
of ''
The Office
''The Office'' is a mockumentary sitcom created by Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant, first made in the United Kingdom, then Germany, and subsequently the United States. It has since been remade in ten other countries.
The original series of ...
'', musician and activist
Wyclef Jean
Nel Ust Wyclef Jean (; born October 17, 1969) is a Haitian rapper, musician, and actor. At the age of nine, Jean immigrated to the United States with his family. He first achieved fame as a member of the New Jersey hip hop group the Fugees, a ...
, the President of
Zambia
Zambia (), officially the Republic of Zambia, is a landlocked country at the crossroads of Central Africa, Central, Southern Africa, Southern and East Africa, although it is typically referred to as being in Southern Africa at its most cent ...
,
Kenneth Kaunda
Kenneth David Kaunda (28 April 1924 – 17 June 2021), also known as KK, was a Zambian politician who served as the first President of Zambia from 1964 to 1991. He was at the forefront of the struggle for independence from British rule. Dissat ...
,
Al Capone
Alphonse Gabriel Capone (; January 17, 1899 – January 25, 1947), sometimes known by the nickname "Scarface", was an American gangster and businessman who attained notoriety during the Prohibition era as the co-founder and boss of the ...
's grandson Chris, and Congressman
Dennis Kucinich
Dennis John Kucinich (; born October 8, 1946) is an American politician. A U.S. Representative from Ohio from 1997 to 2013, he was also a candidate for the Democratic nomination for president of the United States in 2004 and 2008. He ran for ...
.
Music Tours
![Jake Sasseville and Donna Fenn at the David Letterman Lecture Series](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/be/Jake_Sasseville_and_Donna_Fenn_at_the_David_Letterman_Lecture_Series.jpg)
Sasseville has conducted a number of speaking tours. From 2010-2011, he was the executive producer, emcee and co-owner of several music tours, featuring
Kanye West
Ye ( ; born Kanye Omari West ; June 8, 1977) is an American rapper, singer, songwriter, record producer, and fashion designer.
Born in Atlanta and raised in Chicago, West gained recognition as a producer for Roc-A-Fella Records in the ea ...
,
OneRepublic
OneRepublic is an American pop rock band formed in Colorado Springs, Colorado, in 2002. It consists of lead vocalist and multi-instrumentalist Ryan Tedder, lead guitarist and violist Zach Filkins, rhythm guitarist Drew Brown, bassist and cellis ...
, Guster, J. Cole Fabolous and
Brett Dennen
Brett Michael Dennen (born October 28, 1979) is an American folk/pop singer-songwriter from Central California. His seventh studio album, ''See the World'' was released in July 2021.
Early life
Dennen grew up in Central Valley, California in a s ...
. In 2010 and 2011, impressed by the power of education and inspired by his travels to several African countries, Sasseville launched The Pringles Xtreme Campus Tour, a charity program to build one school in Laos and Thailand for every school the music tour stopped at in the United States.
To promote his new TV show on Fox "Late Night Republic", he also embarked on a 40-city road tour, speaking at universities among other events.
The Jake Sasseville Show
On September 16, 2014, Sasseville launched "The Jake Sasseville Show", a podcast, and the show quickly built an audience of one million listeners thanks in part to initial guests like Yvette Noel-Schure (Beyonce's publicist), presidents of Fortune 500 companies and NBA teams, professional sports athletes, Grammy winning musicians and best-selling authors. In order to launch the show successfully, Sasseville called on his wide circle of friends as initial guests. In 2015, in a story recapping Sasseville's interview with Garrett Madison, Mount Everest climber and survivor of the 2015 Nepal earthquake, the ''Huffington Post'' wrote of the show: "The Jake Sasseville Show is at the intersection of culture and consciousness".
Marketing and Promotion
To promote his shows, Sasseville has used a variety of tactics. When the restaurant chain
Wendy's
Wendy's is an American international fast food restaurant chain founded by Dave Thomas (1932–2002) on November 15, 1969, in Columbus, Ohio. Its headquarters moved to Dublin, Ohio, on January 29, 2006. As of December 31, 2018, Wendy's was the ...
refused to take his call to advertise with him, Sasseville showed up at the flagship store beside the corporate headquarters in Columbus, Ohio, inviting every woman named Wendy in the state of Ohio the area to have lunch with him at Wendy's. On another occasion, Sasseville broke the world record for largest drum ensemble on
Pringles Xtreme cans to win the affinity of the brand. He is also the author of ''Slightly Famous'', an autobiography that describes his rise, fall and rebound to "slight" fame.
"Dark Night of the Soul", Maui and Creating Imiloa Institute
In 2012,
Hurricane Sandy
Hurricane Sandy (unofficially referred to as ''Superstorm Sandy'') was an extremely destructive and strong Atlantic hurricane, as well as the largest Atlantic hurricane on record as measured by diameter, with tropical-storm-force winds spann ...
washed away Jake's home on
Broad Channel
Broad Channel is a neighborhood in the southern portion of the New York City borough of Queens. It occupies the southern portion of Rulers Bar Hassock (known colloquially as "Broad Channel Island"), the only inhabited island in Jamaica Bay.
The ...
, NYC. His life upended, losing his TV contracts and being forced to move into his grandmother's basement, in Lewiston, Maine. Her basement, by those who follow him, has become synonymous with a "Dark Night of the Soul." He lived there for two years, searching for what he would do next. After moving to Maui from his grandmother's basement and becoming friends with
Ram Dass
Ram Dass (born Richard Alpert; April 6, 1931 – December 22, 2019), also known as Baba Ram Dass, was an American spiritual teacher, guru of modern yoga, psychologist, and author. His best-selling 1971 book '' Be Here Now'', which has been d ...
and
Shep Gordon
Shep E. Gordon (born October 18, 1945) is an American talent manager, Hollywood film agent, and producer. Gordon is featured in a 2013 documentary, '' Supermensch: The Legend of Shep Gordon'', which was directed by Mike Myers.
Life and educati ...
, Sasseville became interested in the world of transformation as he saw the trend of health and wellness. He also was hosting people in his 2,500 square foot home and cottage in
Kula, Hawaii
Kula is a district of Maui, Hawaii, that stretches across the "up-country", the western-facing slopes of Haleakalā, from Makawao to Kanaio. Most of the residential areas lie between about in elevation. The district has traditionally been where ...
. He created Imiloa in response to the trend toward health and wellness but also recognizing that human beings want to feel at home in their transformation.
It is well known that Jake approached his soon-to-be-business partner Nadav Wilf four times with the idea of Imiloa before Wilf got inspired by the idea. The pair in 2017 notoriously raised $3.5 million in five Facebook posts, making a dent in the social impact world of investing by gathering 38 investors from 19 countries for Imiloa's formation.
Imiloa Institute in Costa Rica
The first of 7 planned inter-continental institutes is in the mountains near
Dominical in Costa Rica.
According to its website, Imiloa is a home and an experience where human beings are invited to awaken their consciousness. Imiloa hosts a variety of retreats and says they handle everything from ticketing to touchdown, transformation to take off, from the United Nations to yoga trainings, medical intuitive retreats to research and development retreats, art therapy retreats and more.
References
External links
''City of Sass'' Official site for Jake Sasseville
{{DEFAULTSORT:Sasseville, Jake
1985 births
American television personalities
Living people
New York Institute of Technology alumni
People from Auburn, Maine
People from Lewiston, Maine