{"id":264725,"date":"2019-01-04T14:32:38","date_gmt":"2019-01-04T21:32:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/b1001762"},"modified":"2019-01-04T14:32:38","modified_gmt":"2019-01-04T21:32:38","slug":"former-american-idol-host-brian-dunkleman-defends-driving-for-uber","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kidn\/music-news\/former-american-idol-host-brian-dunkleman-defends-driving-for-uber\/","title":{"rendered":"Former American Idol Host Brian Dunkleman Defends Driving for Uber"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"block-0-img\" data-hook=\"scrollable-block\" data-swiftype-index=\"false\" readability=\"31\">\n<div class=\"post-content__image\" readability=\"32\"> <img decoding=\"async\" class=\"image--full\" src=\"https:\/\/akns-images.eonline.com\/eol_images\/Entire_Site\/201759\/rs_1024x759-170609113202-rs_1024x759-150511133632-634-ryan-seacrest-idol-brian-dunkleman-headshot.ls.51115.jpg?fit=inside|900:auto&amp;output-quality=90\" border=\"0\" title=\"Brian Dunkleman, Kelly Clarkson, Ryan Seacrest, American Idol\" alt=\"Brian Dunkleman, Kelly Clarkson, Ryan Seacrest, American Idol\" data-width=\"1024\" data-height=\"759\"\/><\/p>\n<p class=\"image__credits\">Kevin Winter\/ImageDirect\/FOX<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div id=\"photo-txt-0\" data-hook=\"scrollable-block\" readability=\"37.546439628483\">\n<section data-textblock-tracking=\"text-block-photo-text\" readability=\"16.578947368421\">\n<p><strong>Brian Dunkleman<\/strong> is firing back after reports surfaced this week about his current occupation.<\/p>\n<p>According to documents\u00a0in Dunkleman&#8217;s divorce from estranged wife <strong>Kalea Dunkleman<\/strong>,\u00a0obtained by\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.tmz.com\/2019\/01\/03\/former-american-idol-host-brian-dunkleman-uber-driver-divorce\/\" target=\"_blank\">TMZ<\/a>, the former <em>American Idol<\/em> host listed his occupation as &#8220;Uber driver.&#8221; The former couple, who share a 5-year-old son named\u00a0<strong>Jackson<\/strong>, have been in an ongoing divorce and custody battle. TMZ reports that Dunkleman, who co-hosted the first season of <em>AI<\/em>\u00a0in 2002 alongside current host <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.eonline.com\/news\/ryan_seacrest\">Ryan Seacrest<\/a><\/strong>, started driving for the company in March 2016.<\/p>\n<p>After seeing the TMZ report about his personal life, Dunkleman took to Twitter to defend driving for Uber.<\/p>\n<\/section>\n<\/div>\n<div id=\"text-2\" data-hook=\"scrollable-block\" readability=\"57.5\">\n<section data-textblock-tracking=\"text-block-text-only\" data-swiftype-index=\"false\" readability=\"5\">\n<p>&#8220;I chose to stop doing standup comedy and started driving an Uber so I could be there for my son as much as he needed after our life as we knew it was destroyed. Print that,&#8221; Dunkleman\u00a0tweeted. &#8220;And I make over a grand on a good week motherf&#8211;kers.&#8221;<\/p>\n<\/section>\n<\/div>\n<div id=\"socialcontent-twitter-3\" data-hook=\"scrollable-block\" data-type=\"async\" data-swiftype-index=\"false\" readability=\"48.691056910569\">\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" readability=\"5.1707317073171\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\" xml:lang=\"en\">I chose to stop doing standup comedy and started driving an Uber so I could be there for my son as much as he needed after our life as we knew it was destroyed.<br \/>Print that.<a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/TMZ?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">@TMZ<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/HarveyLevinTMZ?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">@HarveyLevinTMZ<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Brian Dunkleman (@briandunkleman) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/briandunkleman\/status\/1080996041044877313?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">January 4, 2019<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n<div id=\"text-4\" data-hook=\"scrollable-block\" readability=\"59.032951289398\">\n<section data-textblock-tracking=\"text-block-text-only\" data-swiftype-index=\"false\" readability=\"12.478510028653\">\n<p>Dunkleman&#8217;s girlfriend <strong>Andrea Whitney<\/strong> also took to social media to defend him, sharing a photo of her boyfriend with his son.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;This is why he&#8217;s an Uber driver. F&#8211;k you @TMZ,&#8221; she <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/avocado515\/status\/1081077036095959040\" target=\"_blank\">tweeted<\/a>, adding the hashtag #ImInLoveWithAnUberDriver.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Light or dark? Time to choose a side,&#8221; Dunkleman <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/briandunkleman\/status\/1081232838433726466\" target=\"_blank\">tweeted<\/a> Friday. &#8220;I feel a lot of light coming my way right now.&#8221;<\/p>\n<\/section>\n<\/div>\n<div id=\"tune-in-5\" data-hook=\"scrollable-block\" readability=\"33\">\n<p class=\"tune-in__text\" data-swiftype-index=\"false\">Don&#8217;t miss <em>E! News<\/em> every weeknight at 7, only on E!<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.eonline.com\/news\/1001762\/former-american-idol-host-brian-dunkleman-defends-driving-for-uber?cmpid=rss-000000-rssfeed-365-topstories&#038;utm_source=eonline&#038;utm_medium=rssfeeds&#038;utm_campaign=rss_topstories\" target=\"_blank\">via:: E! Online<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Kevin Winter\/ImageDirect\/FOX Brian Dunkleman is firing back after reports surfaced this week about his current occupation. According to documents\u00a0in Dunkleman&#8217;s divorce from estranged wife Kalea Dunkleman,\u00a0obtained by\u00a0TMZ, the former American Idol host listed his occupation as &#8220;Uber driver.&#8221; The former couple, who share a 5-year-old son named\u00a0Jackson, have been in an ongoing divorce and custody [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[55],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-264725","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-music-news"},"acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-06-13 17:44:17","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"distributor_meta":false,"distributor_terms":false,"distributor_media":false,"distributor_original_site_name":"KIDN - The Lift FM","distributor_original_site_url":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kidn","push-errors":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kidn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/264725","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kidn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kidn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kidn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kidn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=264725"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kidn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/264725\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kidn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=264725"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kidn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=264725"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kidn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=264725"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}