Jaime Pressley

Jaime Pressly
Pressly at the Slim-Fast Fashion Show in January 2008
Born	Jaime Elizabeth Pressly (1977-07-30) July 30, 1977 (age 39) Kinston, North Carolina, U.S.
Occupation	Actress, model
Years active	1991–present
Spouse(s)	Simran Singh (m. 2009–11)
Children	1

Jaime Elizabeth Pressly (born July 30, 1977) is an American actress and model. She is best known for playing Joy Turner on the NBC sitcom My Name Is Earl, for which she was nominated for two Emmy Awards (winning one) as well as a Golden Globe Award and a Screen Actors Guild Award. She has also appeared in films such as Poison Ivy: The New Seduction (1997), Joe Dirt (2001), DOA: Dead or Alive (2006), and I Love You, Man (2009). She is currently in the cast of the CBS sitcom, Mom.

Pressly was born in Kinston, North Carolina, the daughter of Brenda Sue (née Smith), a dance instructor, and James Liston Pressly, a car salesman. In 1992, she moved with her family to Costa Mesa, California, where she spent the first semester of her high school sophomore year. She spent her childhood and early teenage years training as a gymnast, which led her to modeling jobs.

At age fourteen, Pressly appeared on her first cover, Teen Magazine, and became the official spokesmodel for the International Cover Model Search. At fifteen, she left school and went to Japan on a modeling contract. She succeeded in having herself legally emancipated from her parents at the age of fifteen so she could travel to Japan, as neither of her parents could make the trip.

Pressly starred as Violet in the 1997 film Poison Ivy: The New Seduction. In 1998 she starred as Nikki on the short-lived TV series Push, and also played a recurring role as the undead assassin Mika in the TV action series Mortal Kombat: Conquest. From 1999-2001, she played "Audrey" on the drama series Jack and Jill. Pressly starred in the independent film Poor White Trash, playing scheming gold-digger Sandy Lake. Pressly appeared in a number of films in 2001, including Not Another Teen Movie (playing Priscilla, a high school cheerleader) and Torque, as a crazed, motorcycle-riding criminal; and as a Southern love interest in the comedy Joe Dirt, opposite David Spade.