Artie Lange is a comedian whose career has been defined by both immense talent and a very public, tumultuous personal life, making him one of the most recognizable and polarizing figures in American comedy. Born Arthur Steven Lange Jr. on October 11, 1967, in Livingston, New Jersey, and raised in Union, he experienced a profound hardship early on when his father was paralyzed in an accident. To help support his family, Lange worked as a longshoreman and a taxi driver before finding his true calling. He performed his first stand-up set in 1987 and, after five years of honing his craft, committed to comedy full-time, developing a raw, self-deprecating, and often chaotic act on the New York City club circuit.

Lange’s big break came in 1995 when he was cast in the inaugural season of the sketch comedy series Mad TV. His tenure was short-lived, however, as an arrest for cocaine possession during the second season led to his dismissal and a stint in rehabilitation. This setback proved to be a springboard, as Norm Macdonald cast him in the 1998 film Dirty Work, which led to a recurring role on Macdonald’s sitcom The Norm Show. In 2001, Lange returned to New Jersey and joined The Howard Stern Show, where he became a beloved and integral member of the program for nearly a decade. His time on the show elevated his profile immensely, allowing him to release two comedy albums, co-write, produce, and star in the 2006 film Artie Lange's Beer League, and publish his first book, Too Fat to Fish (2008), which debuted at number one on The New York Times Best Seller list.

Following a suicide attempt in early 2010, Lange underwent rehabilitation and subsequently co-hosted The Nick & Artie Show with Nick Di Paolo from 2011 to 2013, before hosting his own The Artie Lange Show from 2013 to 2014. He chronicled his struggles in his second book, Crash and Burn (2013). From 2015 to 2017, he hosted The Artie Quitter Podcast and appeared in the HBO series Crashing, a semi-autobiographical comedy created by Pete Holmes. He later co-hosted The Artie and Anthony Show with Anthony Cumia until 2018, the same year he released his third book, Wanna Bet?.

The late 2010s saw Lange’s career pause amid a series of arrests and drug treatment stints. After achieving a period of sobriety, he returned to stand-up comedy and launched the Artie Lange's Halfway House podcast. In February 2022, he entered another hiatus from public life. Despite his well-documented personal battles, Lange remains a highly influential and respected comedic voice, celebrated for his fearless honesty and his ability to find humor in even the darkest of circumstances. His legacy is a complex one, marked by a prodigious talent that has repeatedly been tested by the very demons he so openly discusses in his work.