The Truth About Daniel Tosh's Marriage

Around 2009, shortly before social media started tapping into misinformation veins, one of the most visible provocateurs of the online world was standup comic Daniel Tosh. Thanks to his Comedy Central program "Tosh.0," the freshly-scrubbed funnyman delighted in stealing some of the funniest and weirdest video clips from the internet, and skewering them with his witty analysis that zipped past PG territory, almost reaching the NSFW threshold. That repartee of risqué and insulting one-liners often received laughs from fans and severe backlash from offended viewers and celebrities alike who took issue with some of his material. "I'm not a misogynistic and racist person," said Tosh in response, while speaking at a media conference covered by EW. "But I do find those jokes funny, so I say them."

For the 12 seasons that "Tosh.0" ran, fans got a peek into how Tosh's mind works, and even got an eyeful on a few sketches the unscripted show featured. Some of those sideshows leaned towards the bizarre side, such as the time he helped a small-time thief stage a bloody armed robbery of a Girl Scout troop, or when he received a rather intimate nude massage. Granted, fans have learned more about his epidermal topography while still in the dark about his private life, upon which Tosh keeps a tight lid. And yes, that goes for his marriage to writer Carly Hallam, too.

Though Daniel Tosh is a public figure who hosted a TV show about internet content for over a decade, his personal life is not exactly splashed all over the World Wide Web. And so, speculation has bubbled up from time to time, including some rumors regarding Tosh's sexual orientation. Gay Celebrities declared that some folks have thought Tosh might be gay, while Queerty once called him a "male Sarah Silverman" before reporting on a troupe called Jet Set Men who mounted a gay-porn satire of the Comedy Central show. He as also included considerable homoerotic content into other segments of the show. Touching on the topic of his sexuality in 2016's "People Pleaser" (via Scraps from the Loft), he plainly stated, "I'm not gay. I have a– I have a girlfriend, not by choice."

In 2009, Tosh started dating model Megan Abrigo, one of the briefcase-toting beauties on the game show "Deal Or No Deal." While Tosh never really dug into the extent of their relationship, he was still frequently photographed with the model at public events and she was name-checked in a New York Times story about the comic. Details over how the years-long relationship ended are sketchy, but, of course, there's been some tittle-tattle. And it wasn't long before he was into another romance.

Daniel Tosh managed to create a show that morphs the droll elements of "America's Funniest Home Videos" with the freakier aspects of "Monty Python's Holy Grail," and there's a good chance his Floridian upbringing might have something to do with it. For years, the Sunshine State has been synonymous with the exploits of its more arcane denizens succinctly lumped into an exclusive "Florida Man" category, making it low-hanging fruit for social media trolls, from the dude who displayed a gigantic roll of toilet paper in his front yard to folks who tried to kill COVID by impaling their nostrils with hair dryers. It's a tempting thought that the headline-making mayhem might have been inspirational fodder for Tosh, who originated from Germany. "My parents were having sex in Europe and gave birth to me there," he said to the Santa Barbara Independent. "I grew up in Florida and went to school there, and ended up going to University of Central Florida."

Per Page Six, Carly Hallam is also a Floridian. A writer and actor, Hallam's show biz dreams took her to the West Coast. Evidently, Tosh and Hallam did not cross paths while they were both living in Florida. California would eventually get credit for that encounter.

Daniel Tosh and Carly Hallam both have long histories with the genre of comedy. As the Santa Barbara Independent noted, it started with hosting his own local show "Tens" before venturing to California. Hacking out a living across the U.S. on the laugh circuit, Tosh's stock grew when he finally hit the talk show world, starting with a network debut on "The Late Show With David Letterman." By 2002, Comedy Central approached Tosh to star in his own special taped at New York City's Hudson Theatre. Several club and TV appearances later, he was primed to start "Tosh.0."

After graduating from university, Hallam left Florida for California to work in the entertainment industry, first getting credit as a production assistant on the pilot episode of the Ray Romano sitcom "Men of A Certain Age" in 2009, then playing a starlet in a 2010 movie called "New Low." Her acting chops led her to starring in a few scenes on "Tosh.0" that same year, where she met the show's star. Two years later, she was also writing for the series. It's not commonly known how long Hallam and Tosh were dating, as the news of their nuptials in 2016 came as a surprise to everyone, save for their immediate families.

In 2018, TMZ broke the news that Daniel Tosh and Carly Hallam had secretly married. More surprisingly, the covert ceremony took place in Malbu on April 15, 2016, more than two years after the news became public; evidently, hardly anyone knew the two were actually dating. The nuptials bucked against obligatory traditional hype surrounding Hollywood unions, although Tosh and Hallam are not the only public couple to eschew having a very public and grandiose wedding. A number of celebrities have famously gotten married in secret, from Mila Kunis and Ashton Kutcher to Cardi B and Offset. 

Tosh and Hallam kept that matrimonial hatch tightly sealed, with apparently no wedding picture leakage, and no news of their marital status on their social media accounts. And the two continued to keep things pretty private moving forward; on "Tosh.0," Tosh was more likely to mention his late dog Castro than his wife. On Twitter, Hallam referred to Tosh only once during the pandemic, but not by name. "Husband tested negative for covid," she wrote," but positive for being a lil' b***h every time he gets sick." While colleagues might have wondered how the work-life dynamic would turn out at "Tosh.0," they were disappointed, when Hallam headed to "Brooklyn Nine-Nine" after she got married.

Daniel Tosh keeping his marriage secret for two years may seem unusual, but clearly, privacy is important to the TV star. Then there's the age difference between Tosh and Carly Hallam. When TMZ announced the two got hitched in 2016, the outlet noted Hallam was 31 at the time. Tosh was born in 1975, making them a decade apart. When Hallam was born, Tosh would have been in Grade 5. When Tosh's standup act managed to crack the Just For Laughs roster in Montreal in 1998, Hallam was at least a year away from attending high school. 

Granted, they both completed their rites of passage by the time they connected, meaning that the age gap doesn't factor in as much now that they're both older. As for the impact such a difference would have on a marriage, findings are mixed. The results of one American Psychological Association study showed that roughly 75% of spouses in a marriage with a significant age difference were satisfied with their relationship. However, another study in the National Library of Medicine stated, "Marital satisfaction declines with marital duration for both men and women in differently-aged couples relative to those in similarly-aged couples." The study also found that older men in such marriages tend to be very happy with their relationships.

While Daniel Tosh and Carly Hallam keep their relationship as private as possible, it seems safe to say she appears to be made of some pretty strong stuff. It probably hasn't been that easy living with someone who has the same level of celebrity cachet as fellow Comedy Central draws as "The Daily Show" host Trevor Noah or the characters of "South Park," no strangers to offending viewers themselves. While "Tosh.0" was on the air, the star was called out for sexism, racism, and transphobia. The most controversial instance turned out to be a 2012 appearance at The Laugh Factory nightclub, where a sexual assault joke turned off so many people at the venue and online, he later had to apologize for his utterances. 

Hallam started working on "Tosh.0" only two years earlier, while the show's star was dating Megan Abrigo. Tosh and Abrigo were still very much a thing when he taped a number of specials where he riffed about his dynamic with his then-girlfriend (and no, said riffs were not exactly super flattering). While we can't say for certain, there have been whispers about whether or not the stuff he said about her in his acts was what ultimately tanked things for them. Of course, a comedian making jokes about their significant other is a tale as old as time, but in recent years, it sure looks like he has pivoted away from incorporating bits about his present-day relationship into his work. 

If laughter is the best medicine, then the differing jocular trajectories of Daniel Tosh and Carly Hallam seem to be very good for each other. Tosh's brand of humor tends to be very cutting, usually with a target in mind, such as this insulting nugget retrieved by Ranker: "Being an ugly woman is like being a man. You're gonna have to work." However, Hallam's funny bone seems to tilt towards slice-of-life commentary, some of which she's documented on Twitter: "Watching two pregnant people hug is a lot like watching two sumo wrestlers do anything." Then there was the time she passed a sedan with an "I Heart Keith Urban" sticker on its rear windshield and tweeted, "If Keith Urban goes missing, check this trunk."

Hallam has also shown another side of her personality as a freelancer, including two pieces she wrote for McSweeney's Internet Tendency, one of which was a brief quiz on whether your child was two years old (although whether she's since achieved motherhood remains a mystery). Somewhat more daring is her other piece on how to wear a little black dress, including tidbits like "As a skirt with the top of half of it just hanging around your waist. You're still drunk!" It's little wonder why Tosh considered her such a writing asset on "Tosh.0" and why she was picked to write four episodes of "Brooklyn Nine-Nine."

Recent years concerning the professional careers of Daniel Tosh and Carly Hallam have been rather bittersweet. Tosh's case was particularly heartbreaking, especially after he renewed a contract with Comedy Central in January, 2020 that would see his series stay on for five more seasons. But that August, the cable channel killed the deal to make way for more animated series, newsier comedy shows, and movie-oriented content. "After 12 years together, Comedy Central and I are consciously uncoupling," tweeted Tosh (per Hollywood Reporter). "They get the cartoons, and I'm heading to any network with stronger WiFi."

Receiving considerably less publicity over her career fate was Carly Hallam, who left "Tosh.0" to write for the Fox comedy "Brooklyn Nine-Nine" in 2016, which the network dropped after the sitcom's fifth season in 2018. Despite a revival by NBC that fall, "Brooklyn Nine-Nine" was only slated for a 13-episode run and was never renewed. Since the cancellation of those two major projects, Tosh and Hallam have been silent in terms of Hollywood output, save for some voiceover work by Tosh on an animated series called "Paradise PD" and a surfing documentary collaboration between the couple. And of course, there's Tosh's work on the road; as of this writing, his latest tour will go through the end of 2022.

After 12 seasons, "Tosh.0" has the distinction of being one of the longest-running weekly live-action shows in Comedy Central's history. And star Daniel Tosh sure has raked in some good money. According to Celebrity Net Worth, he's worth $20 million. Now, next to fellow Comedy Central star Jon Stewart's net worth of $120 million, Tosh's take may seem meager, but it's still a hefty chunk of change. In addition to "Tosh.0," it is likely Tosh has brought in quite a lot from his standup comedy tours.

Carly Hallam has earned money acting and writing for "Tosh.0," as well as writing and editing for the cop comedy "Brooklyn Nine-Nine." Unconfirmed online reports estimate her worth falling between $600,000 and $800,000, which for a writer is no small potatoes.

While it's long been said that happiness must come from within, not from your bank account, Tosh sees things a bit differently. As he quipped in one of his standup sets, "Do you live in America? Because it buys a WaveRunner. Have you ever seen a sad person on a WaveRunner? ... Try to frown on a WaveRunner." A fair point.