CJ de Mooi (pronounced [d? mo:i?], also known as Connagh Joseph De Mooi or Joseph Connagh, born 5 November 1969) is a British professional quizzer, best known for his time as a panellist on the BBC Television show Eggheads. He adopted the name de Mooi when he began working as a model; he translates it as Dutch for "handsome", though the actual translation would be "the beautiful".
De Mooi appeared on a number of television quiz shows before Eggheads (first aired in 2003), where he was one of five original members of the show's eponymous team. In December 2011, de Mooi announced he had left Eggheads permanently to pursue an acting career. He appeared in broadcast episodes until August 2012 and was replaced on the show by Dave Rainford. However, he returned to a new, short-lived format of Eggheads in 2014 called Revenge of the Egghead. He stated he returned because of his 'love of the show'. He then returned to the main version of Eggheads replacing Daphne Fowler.
In 2016, Mooi was accused of sexual assault but was subsequently cleared. In an interview with the Daily Mirror de Mooi also mentioned that he had been axed from Eggheads and had re-located to South Africa, to pursue a career in acting. In September 2016 he was arrested on suspicion of a homicide allegedly committed in 1988, under a European Arrest Warrant issued in the Netherlands, regarding claims reported to have been made in his autobiography.
Video CJ de Mooi
Early life
In his autobiography, de Mooi states that he was given the names Andrew Paul at his birth, in Barnsley, Yorkshire. He moved to Rotherham in his childhood, and attended a local comprehensive school. De Mooi studied English and Performing Arts at Rotherham College of Arts and Technology before embarking upon a modelling career in Germany which lasted for four and a half years.
On a self-recorded YouTube video, CJ claims to have had a highly abusive childhood, causing him to run away from home shortly after his seventeenth birthday and become homeless beginning in Rotherham and Sheffield. The video describes how he travelled to London, jumped on a ferry to Amsterdam and later moved on to Cologne, where a chance encounter outside a gay bar led to the beginnings of his modelling career. De Mooi was reported to have stated in his autobiography that in 1988 he may have killed a man who was attempting to mug him by punching and throwing him into a canal in Amsterdam.
Maps CJ de Mooi
Career
Quizzer
In 2000 de Mooi applied to several game and quiz television shows as a contestant and stood out for being outspoken (his tirade when voted off the Weakest Link has been featured on the show's website, video and led to a 'bad losers show' which he eventually won). He has also appeared on numerous other quiz shows including Fifteen to One, Countdown, Beat the Nation, 100% and No Win, No Fee. He challenged six former professional snooker players during the 2010 World Snooker Championship to test his snooker knowledge against their knowledge of chosen specialist subjects. He won all but one round, John Parrott being the only player to get the better of him.
As part of the Cardiff Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Mardi Gras in March 2007, de Mooi acted as host of a quiz night. He also hosted a quiz at the June 2010 conference of the British Humanist Association. In 2013 De Mooi published his first book, entitled How to Win TV Quiz Shows.
Chess
De Mooi was a club chess player from 1990 to 2009, representing Hammersmith Chess Club in West London. At the peak his chess rating was 158 ECF, equivalent to Elo 1885. In 2010 he was elected President of the English Chess Federation.
In September 2010 he was very outspoken as a delegate to the FIDE (the World Chess Federation)'s presidential elections. De Mooi described the events, which saw Kirsan Ilyumzhinov re-elected over Anatoly Karpov, as "a farce of a vote", going on to declare: "You wouldn't believe the blatant breaking of rules and FIDE's written statutes. It's amazing. There wasn't even a pretence of fairness and free speech." According to de Mooi, Ilyumzhinov, the federation's president for 15 years, had refused to allow Karpov's supporters to address the general assembly meeting, but turned off their microphones and carried on speaking himself and ignored legal points raised from the floor, eventually storming off stage with the federation's ruling board.
Acting
CJ moved into professional acting full-time in 2011 and has appeared in plays, musicals and pantomimes. In 2014, he performed in and produced two plays by Harvey Fierstein in London's West End and was then cast in the Lazarus Theatre productions of Troilus and Cressida and Coriolanus. He also completed filming on his movie debut, a 9-minute short entitled The Renata Road, which was filmed in 2011 and put out on release in 2014 with a showing at Cannes International Film Festival in 2015.
Personal life
According to de Mooi, he adopted his new name whilst modelling and is quoted as saying "I no longer wanted to be associated with my family". De Mooi translates from Dutch to mean "the beautiful"; it is not an uncommon Dutch family name. He currently resides in Wales with his civil partner Andrew Doran. De Mooi is teetotal and a vegetarian.
Charity
De Mooi ran in the 2009 London Marathon raising money for Amnesty International. He also competed in the 2012 London Marathon, completing with a time of 3 hours 16 minutes and 30 seconds.
In 2015 he ran in the London Marathon for Shooting Star CHASE, a children's hospice, finishing in 2 hours 58 minutes 30 seconds.
Arrest
On 21 September 2016, de Mooi was arrested at Heathrow Airport in connection with claims, which he had reportedly made in his autobiography, that in 1988 he had punched a drug-addicted mugger and thrown him into a canal in Amsterdam. De Mooi was detained under a European Arrest Warrant issued in the Netherlands. A judge at Westminster Magistrates' Court declined the extradition request on technical grounds, on 24 October 2016, saying that no UK arrest warrant had been issued.
Books
- CJ de Mooi: How to Win TV Quiz Shows. CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform, 25 July 2013
- CJ de Mooi: CJ: The Autobiography of CJ De Mooi: My Journey From the Streets to the Screens. John Blake Publishing, 3 September 2015.
- CJ de Mooi and Mark Labbett: Quiz Like a Pro!. Amazon Kindle, 6 June 2016.
- CJ de Mooi: Dispersal. Amazon Kindle, 8 June 2016.
References
External links
- De Mooi's website
Source of article : Wikipedia
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