Whatever Happened To Downtown Julie Brown?

Remember when MTV was all about the music and music videos? One of the most famous MTV VJs of that era — from the late 1980s and early 1990s — was Downtown Julie Brown. The Welsh-born TV personality was a fixture on the music channel, first as a VJ and then as the host of Club MTV, which was shot at the famous Palladium dance club in New York City. Before moving to the states, Brown was a dancer. She won the UK Disco Dancing Championships and took home the World Disco Dancing Championship trophy in 1979, per Rediscover the 80's. But it was her gig as host on the pan-European music channel Music Box, which was very similar to MTV, that jumpstarted her broadcasting career.

What viewers of Club MTV probably remember the most was her catchphrase, "Wubba Wubba Wubba," which was rumored to be the result of an on-camera flub. In the 2012 book, I Want My MTV: The Uncensored Story of the Music Video Revolution, Brown revealed that, while reading from the cue cards, she accidentally read what was printed on the T-shirt of a camera crew member who was holding the cue cards. As they say, the rest is history. But, in April 1992, MTV began shifting its programming model away from music, and as a result, the network cancelled Club MTV. At the time, that was Downtown Julie Brown's only role at MTV, so she left the network. Keep reading to find out where she landed next.

After leaving MTV, Downtown Julie Brown took on a few new broadcasting opportunities. She worked for ESPN doing interviews on and off the football field with athletes, and followed up that job by hosting a Hollywood gossip show for E!, per The Chicago Tribune. Around the same time, The Baltimore Sun reported that she became the host of the syndicated radio show American Dance Traxx until late 1993.

Over the years, Brown has had small roles in two of the Sharknado films and has made appearances in Sandy Wexler, B*A*P*S, and Spy Hard, along with doing voiceover work for the TV show Sabrina, the Animated Series. In 2003, she appeared on the US version of the reality show I'm a Celebrity, Get Me Out of Here! with other luminaries, such as Bruce Jenner, Melissa Rivers, and Robin Leach. In 2001, Brown married film producer Martin Schuermann and they have one daughter, Gianna. Brown and her family were also featured on Celebrity Wife Swap, which saw her trading places with Olympic basketball legend Lisa Leslie, in 2013

Brown is currently one of the hosts of the AXS show A Year In Music, which takes a deep dive into the biggest artists, songs, and albums one year per episode. She can also be heard every weekday on Sirius XM's '90s on 9 as one of the channel's radio hosts, in which she plays all the hits from the 1990s! It is good to know that Downton Julie Brown still has some "Wubba Wubba Wubba's" left in her.