Mark Ebner

Mark Charles Ebner (born 1959) is an American investigative journalist and the host of TruTV's Rich and Reckless. Ebner writes primarily about issues in the Los Angeles area, including pit bull fighting in South Central, Scientology, and celebrity scandal. He has covered celebrity culture for Spy, Rolling Stone, Details, and Salon.com. He has been featured as a guest or contributor on VH1, The Daily Show, South Park, CourtTV, and Fox News.

Career
Ebner graduated from Bard College in 1982, where he edited the Bard Times.

In 2002 he co-authored Ain't It Cool?: Hollywood's Redheaded Stepchild Speaks Out with Harry Knowles. With Andrew Breitbart, he wrote the New York Times and Los Angeles Times 2005 best-seller Hollywood, Interrupted. In early 2006, Ebner joined Tucker Max's Rudius Media as a blogger and celebrity journalist, also known as Hollywoodinterrupted.com.

Ebner was a consultant on South Park's controversial Trapped in the Closet episode that was eventually nominated for an Emmy Award.

In mid-2007, Ebner broke that actor and activist Sean Penn was frequenting a Hawaiian resort in the center of a controversial debate between natives and visitors over an ancestral burial ground. Ebner also broke an investigative story implicating Bill Cosby on allegations of sexual assault, a story that People Magazine originally planned to publish, but buried.

Shortly after the on-campus shooting at Virginia Tech, Ebner reported that Scientology leaders had dispatched "grief counselors" to the scene. According to Ebner and a supposedly sourced document, their intent was to investigate the psychiatric history of killer Seung-Hui Cho. This story was later picked up by Boing Boing and made the front page of Digg.com.

As of Summer 2008, Ebner was hosting Rich and Reckless, an original true crime series produced by and broadcast on TruTV.