Mike Rowe: 21 Facts About The Dirty Jobs Host

Mike Rowe has made his name being a dirty, dirty man. Go ahead and get your head out of the gutter — we're not talking that kind of dirty. Rather, Rowe was the ever-agreeable host of Discovery Channel's "Dirty Jobs" for eight glorious seasons. 

Taking on a wide variety of jobs most people haven't even heard of, let alone want to do, Rowe tackled the essential tasks done every day by unseen and unsung heroes: From scorpion hunting to cleaning water towers, and scooping up toxic sludge to recycling hotel soap, Rowe shone a light on these unpleasant tasks with gusto, making the show's fans appreciate essential workers just that little bit more. 

But there's a lot more to him than TV fame, so do yourself a favor and dig into some less-known facts about Rowe's life. Digging in, after all, is pretty much what got Rowe famous in the first place.

After earning the esteemed honor of Eagle Scout, Mike Rowe remembers receiving a letter from none other than President Gerald Ford congratulating him on his accomplishment. The letter was written on fancy paper and featured the presidential stamp, Ford's name and his photocopied signature at the bottom. In other words, it was a form letter, which was nice to Rowe in theory but, at the same time, felt slightly deceitful.

So what did Rowe do when he grew up and became the host of his own show? Why, he created his own form letter for new Eagle Scouts, of course, and offered to send it signed (and personalized) to any Eagle Scout who requests one, so long as they provide him with a self-addressed, stamped envelope.

Since Rowe wasn't the biggest fan of Ford's seemingly impersonal message, what makes his letter any better? Well, for starters, Rowe comes right out and admits his is a form letter, which few do, particularly Presidents. Plus, Rowe's has five blanks throughout the letter where he at least takes the time to, in his words, "scribble in your name."

Considering Mike Rowe's fame from "Dirty Jobs" and several other successful projects, it should come as no surprise he's a multi-millionaire, to the estimated tune of a fat $35 million. That's surely enough to splurge on a mansion, or two, or three. But for Rowe, there's been no chunk of change big enough to get him away from the modest San Francisco apartment he's called home for the last 14 years and counting.

Rowe finally revealed his digs when a fan on Facebook asked him, among other things, to truthfully admit he doesn't live in a mansion. It was a pretty easy thing to admit for Rowe, who said the extent of his mansioning experience is that he house-sat one once and "kinda liked it." Otherwise, he's been more than content sticking with the apartment lifestyle, especially at a pad that offers such a sweet, and only slightly obstructed view of Treasure Island and Alcatraz, which he regards as the best part about his place.

Imagine waking up one morning to find people on the internet thinking you're already dead. Mike Rowe crazily had the misfortune of experiencing this scenario, and his story that led it (via HuffPost) is downright hilarious, albeit completely and utterly bizarre.

Decked out in his birthday suit, Rowe was asleep and remembers being submerged in some sort of strange dream about gardening. A loud buzzing sound finally yanked Rowe from his slumber, and he immediately rose to investigate the culprit. It turned out to be a nosy little drone, right outside his window, and with its camera pointed directly at Rowe and his still-as-God-made-him body.

Incensed, Rowe grabbed his shotgun from under his bed and, still disrobed, stormed outside, ready to shoot the drone from the sky. He pumped a shell into the chamber — which was apparently heard and served as the genesis of the death hoax (via HNGN) — had the shot lined up, and was just about to pull the trigger when the drone's camera turned toward him and made Rowe rethink his actions. He could see it now: A video popping up on his mom's computer with the headline "'Dirty Jobs' Guy Totally Loses It — Gets Naked and Shoots Drone From San Francisco Skies," and that fright was enough to make Rowe drop his shotgun and reach for his cell phone instead. The only shot he ended up taking was a picture of the drone as it flew away.

Nine years, 169 episodes, and 50 states later, it's crazy to think that "Dirty Jobs," the franchise that truly put Mike Rowe on the map, was originally only slated to air as three one-hour specials. 

That's right — 180 minutes of Rowe is all we were supposed to get, after he caught the Discovery Channel's attention by sending a tape of one of his more graphic pieces from a segment he used to do on San Francisco's "Evening Magazine." The segment was called "Somebody's Gotta Do It," and it featured Rowe exploring the wonders of artificial cow insemination.

Unsurprisingly, viewers reacted to the specials en masse, and in every way imaginable, giving Rowe the bright idea to see if Discovery was interested in making his fresh, but clearly eccentric, concept a regular deal. They were interested all right and, like that, "Dirty Jobs" was born. The rest, as Rowe says on his website, is dirty history.

Mike Rowe is so identified in pop culture as the "Dirty Jobs" guy, that people who've heard of him assume that he's great at fixing things. The truth is just the opposite. He grew up being envious of his father and grandfather, who both had a much better mechanical knack and ability to use their hands. Especially his grandfather Carl Knobel, who Rowe called Pop. "To me, Pop was a magician, and his talents a great mystery," Rowe wrote in Guideposts magazine. "As his would-be apprentice, I mimicked his every move."

But Rowe was a terrible apprentice. And it frustrated the heck out of him when he was a teenager. To which his grandfather explained, "God gave me a toolbox, Mike. He gave you one too. But he didn't give us the same one. You understand?" Rowe said he first thought his grandfather was "just trying to make me feel better" but then realized he was right. Rowe's gifts were his voice and his ability to speak in public.

Years later, when Rowe was a San Francisco TV host, his toilet backed up, and he had to call a plumber. The situation reminded him of his grandfather. "I considered a world without men like Pop. What would civilization look like without them?" he wrote. "If a TV host calls in sick, life goes on. But if our tradesmen don't report for work, things fall apart. Literally." So he used his own toolbox to do a segment called "Somebody's Gotta Do It" to illuminate what those forgotten blue-collar workers do, with Rowe as the apprentice. That idea evolved into Discovery's "Dirty Jobs." Pretty touching story for a self-described "smart aleck."

Mike Rowe gave a TED Talk in 2008, in which he discussed preparing to work at a Colorado sheep farm castrating lambs for a "Dirty Jobs" episode. "Normally, I never do any research at all," he admitted, but since this involved animals, he wanted to do this with "respect" for the creatures. He called various animal protection groups to get their opinion on the most humane way to do this procedure. They recommended putting rubber bands around the tail and the testicle. In a week, both body parts would fall off, due to blood constriction.

He then found out when filming the episode that the sheep farmer he was apprenticing with used a knife to cut both. Then the farmer finished the job by using his mouth and teeth to remove the testicles. This was shockingly gruesome, but the lamb quickly recovered. It took Rowe himself a little while to recover, and he asked for the camera crew to stop for a second.

"I don't know what just happened, but there are testicles in this bucket," Rowe said, "and that's not how we do it." Yet when he asked the farmer to do the removal the "humane" way, with the rubber band, he saw that this other lamb was staggering around and would have ongoing pain for the next week, while the first lamb was back to "frolicking." So Rowe ended up doing it the farmer's way, which meant following the direction, "Bite 'em. Just bite 'em off." This became a metaphor for other misconceptions he had in life. It made him change his thinking forever. And yes, he got that epiphany from biting off sheep testicles.

Way before Spartan Races and Crossfit training made the exercise of torture known as a burpee popular, it was most well known for being a prison workout. This bodyweight exercise is how inmates can get pumped up in the joint without using free weights. A burpee is like a pushup, squat, and lunge on steroids, complete with a jump at the end of each one. You don't need any equipment or even a lot of space to get in shape with this.

Since Mike Rowe has been on the road so much for the past 20 years, he started doing this prison workout, which works in a regular hotel room the same way it does in the Graybar Hotel. He explained in a fan Q&A how he does them — helpfully demonstrating both how to do them, and highlighting their beneficial effects on his fitness.

When moving to CNN to do the show "Somebody's Gotta Do It," Mike Rowe talked to TV Guide about why his show "Dirty Jobs" ended. He explained the first reason was that he didn't want to have it get bigger and start doing celebrity versions, saying, "I didn't want to do a special episode of "Dirty Jobs" with Gwyneth Paltrow or John Stamos in the sewer," he said.

The other was that the trend for reality shows was getting away from his unscripted, one-take style of show. Rowe told TV Guide, "Unscripted no longer means without a script. I looked at "Duck Dynasty" and "Amish Mafia" and "Here Comes Honey Boo Boo" and all the hit shows were coming out of the nonfiction space — they had writers' rooms."

In his 2014 Reddit AMA, he even called out "Ghost Hunters," a show he worked on, as not being the most real. When a Redditor asked him if he had "ever had an experience with a ghost," he responded: "Well, I narrated GHOSTHUNTERS for 8 seasons. All I can tell you for sure regarding the paranormal is that there's good money in it."

Because of his work on "Dirty Jobs," Mike Rowe has been identified as somebody with an affinity for the working class, and for illustrating points in a humorous way. But Mike Rowe also has a foundation called mikeroweWORKS to get more people trained in skilled jobs that don't require a college degree. To that end, he has testified multiple times to Congress on this issue.

In February 2017, as described on Rowe's website, he spoke before the House Committee on Education and The Workforce, noting that "the student-loan bubble is going to burst, as bubbles always do, and that "the outstanding debt is 1.3 trillion dollars." Yet even now, he pointed out, "we continue to lend money we don't have to kids who can't pay it back, educating them for jobs that no longer exist — while ignoring careers that do." And that's no joke.

"Dirty Jobs" has been such a special part of Mike Rowe's life that once the possibility arose to bring the show back in 2022, the host eagerly set the wheels in motion. In an interview with TMZ, he said, "I started getting a lot of letters from fans of the old show and I think the network heard from a lot of them as well. 'Dirty Jobs' was the granddaddy of essential working shows. Since that was back in the headlines, it seemed like a good idea to go out and just remind people of who was keeping the lights on and doing the kinds of jobs that make civilized life work for the rest of us."

Since the pandemic deeply affected so many of the very same people that Rowe passionately supports, it was the perfect time to revive the series. Yet at the same time, the host wanted to do even more to highlight the difficult lives of workers, so he also became both the narrator and a producer for another show, "How America Works," on the Fox Business Network.

Clearly, Rowe has not changed in his dedication to promoting critical, yet often overlooked jobs, but he also has admitted to The Hollywood Reporter that his views on various careers have evolved over time. With his revised outlook, the host wants to stress that no matter how important some careers are, there is no such thing as nonessential work, for they all play an essential role in making the economy run smoothly.