Rachelle Wilkos is currently an executive producer of The Steve Wilkos Show which is hosted by her husband Steve Wilkos. She had previously held the position on The Jerry Springer Show.
Rachelle Wilkos’s early life and education background
Rachelle Wilkos was born on January 11, 1971. She graduated from Lake Shore High school in St.Clair Shores, Michigan in 1989. Her mother Maggie Varney is an honored hairdresser, who is the founder & CEO of Wigs 4 Kids, an organization which makes wigs for children fighting cancer and other diseases that cause loss of hair.
She graduated majoring in journalism from the Wayne State University. Then, she joined a local morning show called Company as an intern in 1994. Shortly afterward, she was promoted to an associate producer.
Rachelle Wilkos led The Jerry Springer show to the top, beating Oprah
Rachelle was hired as an Associate Producer of The Jerry Springer Show in 1995 but got promoted to producer within three months. The next season, she saw her rise to a Coordinating Producer and eventually became the Supervising Producer in 1997.
Springer saw a growth of 130% and in 1998 was at its peak as they beat The Oprah Winfrey Show with 8.7 HH rating compared to Oprah ‘s 8.4. The show was also placed 4th among all shows in syndication. It became the first show to beat Oprah in over a decade and Wilkos was credited for their huge success.
At the start of the 2008 season of The Jerry Springer Show long time executive producer Richard Dominick left the show and Wilkos was named the executive producer. At the time her husband Steve was filling in every Monday for Jerry and NBC offered him his own talk show. Rachelle left Springer and joined The Steve Wilkos Show as an executive producer.
Rachelle currently has two children with husband Steve Wilkos including a daughter Ruby Wilkos (2003 October born) and son Jack Wilkos (born June 2005). The family used to reside in Park Ridge, Illinois but later moved to a luxury house in Fairfield County, Connecticut.