Morgan Spurlock is an American political activist, documentary filmmaker, television producer and a screenwriter like Adam Savage. Spurlock came into fame after some of his amazing documentary works. His documentaries like, ‘One Direction: This is Us’, ‘POM Wonderful Presents: The Greatest Movie Ever Sold’, and ‘Super-Size Me’ have earned him tremendous fame and success throughout the years.
For his 2003 film ‘Super Size Me’ he documented his health where he spent 30 days eating food only from McDonald’s. Mostly for this very reason, he is known all around America. Let us now get to know more about this versatile personality.
Morgan Spurlock: Early Life, Education
Spurlock was born on the 7th of November, 1970, in Beckley, West Virginia. He was born to parents Ben Spurlock and Phyllis who raised Morgan to be a Methodist. Spurlock is an American by nationality and is of Scots-Irish and English ethnicity.
In 1989, Morgan graduated from Woodrow Wilson High School in Beckley. Next, he joined the New York University’s Tech School of Fine Arts and graduated in 1993. Spurlock, ever since an early age was an artsy child and started writing plays from a very young age. Some of Morgan’s greatest works came in the form of a play called ‘The Phoenix’. This won him the New York International Fringe Festival in 1999. He then went on to win the Route 66 American Playwriting Competition in 2000.
Morgan Spurlock: Career
In the film industry, he made his debut working as a production assistant on various films. He started out in ‘Leon: The Professional’ and went on to work on ‘Kiss of Death’. Spurlock also worked on various stand-up routines in California. However, he was struggling with money and did not have enough to pay the bills. He had a phase where he reached his lowest point and became homeless. However, this talented individual found success and is now deservedly acclaimed as an award-winning playwright. Morgan then made a show, ‘I Bet You Will’ which was even aired on MTV. The show was about the ordinary public who did stunts for cash.
2003 became a life-changing time for Morgan. He was with his parent’s place for Thanksgiving dinner. He and his family were watching a story about two teenage girls who were planning to sue McDonald’s for causing them to become obese. This inspired the comedian in him to create a documentary film that would attack the quality of McDonald’s.
The documentary came out in 2004 at the Sundance film festival. There it was nominated for Grand Jury prize and Morgan won for the best direction of a documentary. For the documentary, he spent 30-days eating food from nowhere else but McDonald’s, to show it’s effect on the human body.
This whole challenge resulted in mental and physical problems for Morgan. He had gained 25 pounds and was even diagnosed with depression. However, career-wise, this became a huge success for Spurlock; this earned him a 2004 Academy Award nomination for best documentary.
Morgan Spurlock: Personal Life
Morgan married his partner Alexandra Jamieson in 2006 and they gave birth to a baby boy Laken James Spurlock in 2006. But due to some misunderstandings, the couple separated in 2011. His ex-wife represented herself as an author, a speaker, TV personality and a natural foods chef. They were together for just 4 years.
There have been rumors about Spurlock who did not value his wife enough. People have been writing about Morgan as not being a caring husband or even a father, while only paying attention to his career. However, there are also speculations about Alexandra cheating on Morgan while he was shooting for a show in Afghanistan. This is a matter of gray lines with unclear pieces of evidence and we wish them both a better life.
Morgan Spurlock: Net Worth
Spurlock has been highly successful throughout his career and much of the credit goes to his abilities as a documentarian and his net worth is around $12 million. In 2008, his box office hit ‘Where in the World is Osama Bin Laden?’ made sales of $385 million. Next, his work for the documentary ‘One Direction: This is Us’ made $68.5 million of sale having built on a total of $10 million.
Morgan is also active on Instagram where he has over 19k followers and Twitter where he has 152k followers.
