Rachel Bloom

Rachel Leah Bloom (born April 3, 1987) is an American actress, comedian, singer, writer, and producer. She is best known for co-creating and starring as Rebecca Bunch in The CW musical comedy-drama series Crazy Ex-Girlfriend (2015–2019). The role has won her numerous accolades, including a Golden Globe Award, a TCA Award, a Critics' Choice Television Award, and a Primetime Emmy Award.

Bloom first became known for her YouTube comedy music videos, including the Hugo Award-nominated video "Fuck Me, Ray Bradbury" (2010). She has also appeared in films, including Most Likely to Murder (2018), The Angry Birds Movie 2 (2019), and Trolls World Tour (2020). Her one-woman stage show turned comedy special Rachel Bloom: Death, Let Me Do My Special premiered on Netflix on October 15, 2024, after successful Off-Broadway runs at both the Orpheum Theatre and Lucille Lortel Theatre. She also released a memoir titled I Want to Be Where the Normal People Are, which was published by Grand Central Publishing on November 17, 2020.

Bloom was born on April 3, 1987, in Los Angeles County, California, and grew up in Manhattan Beach. She is the only child of Shelli (née Rosenberg), a musician, and Alan Bloom, a healthcare lawyer. She is Jewish.

She attended Manhattan Beach public schools including Mira Costa High School, where she was involved in the school's drama program. Bloom has said she used performance as a way to try to fit in. In 2009, Bloom graduated from New York University's Tisch School of the Arts with a BFA in Drama. While at NYU, she was a head writer and director with the school's sketch comedy group, Hammerkatz. During college, Bloom first performed at the Upright Citizens Brigade Theatre in New York with the group, and later on her own at its venue in Los Angeles. She was once roommates with comedian Ilana Glazer after college in Brooklyn.

Bloom recorded a video for her original song "Fuck Me, Ray Bradbury" in April 2010 and it was released in advance of the writer's 90th birthday in August that year. The song was inspired by Bloom's re-reading of her favorite Bradbury book, The Martian Chronicles. Done as a parody of teen pop but in tribute to Bradbury, the viral video on her "RachelDoesStuff" YouTube channel had more than 600,000 views in its first week of release and Bloom gained a following from it and her subsequent videos. The video was a finalist for the Hugo Award in 2011. A photo of Bradbury, posted online Aug. 21, 2010, purported to show him watching the video.

In college, she worked as a writer's intern at Saturday Night Live and in 2012, she unsuccessfully auditioned for the show. The audition video she submitted included a bit as Katharine Hepburn doing the voice for Bugs Bunny in Space Jam.

Bloom released her first album of musical comedy, Please Love Me, on May 13, 2013. It featured the viral songs "Fuck Me, Ray Bradbury" and "You Can Touch My Boobies". Her second album, Suck It, Christmas, was a collaboration with Dan Gregor (her husband) and Jack Dolgen. Released on November 19, 2013, the album is a comedic look at Chanukah with songs including "Chanukah Honey". Bloom provided the voice of Princess Peach in the song "Luigi's Ballad" on Starbomb's self-titled debut album, released in December 2013.

Bloom also worked as a television writer on Allen Gregory and Robot Chicken.