Who Is Retta From Parks And Rec And How She Became An HGTV Star

In 1970, Marietta Sangai Sirleaf was born in Newark, New Jersey. These days, however, she no longer goes by that moniker but has joined an elite group of celebs to be recognized by just one name: Retta.

Her wry sense of humor propelled her toward the standup comedy stage, which became a launching pad to a Hollywood career. This has taken place primarily in television, where she first gained popularity via a standout role in "Parks and Recreation," arguably among the most beloved TV sitcoms of its era. For those wondering where the "Parks and Rec" cast are today, in Retta's case, she's continued to be a fixture on television, segueing into dramatic roles, and eventually, becoming a beloved personality on the popular home design network, HGTV.

Retta didn't achieve that success without paying her dues, including endless auditions as she built her career brick by hilarious brick — something she candidly discussed in an interview with Salon. "You rarely hear that someone stepped off a plane and got put in 'Jurassic Park.' It's work," she explained. "I knew that I had to go through some things. I didn't know exactly what, but I knew in my head this is supposed to be hard." Those early days of struggling are now well in the past as her star continues to rise steadily upward.

The showbiz success that Retta has achieved can be seen as an example of the American dream realized. Her parents immigrated to the U.S. from the African nation of Liberia, settling in New Jersey. As the child of immigrants, Retta's focus while growing up was trying to fit in. "I have immigrant parents, so home was a little different than my friends," she explained in an interview with Edge Magazine. That was particularly true when it came to her schoolwork. 

While she was expected to excel, she came to learn that wasn't necessarily the case for many of her classmates. "I remember friends getting cash for grades. You get $10 for an A, and $5 for a B, and a dollar for a C," she said with a laugh. "I was like, first of all, you get money for a C?" The ultimate goal was to get into a good college, which meant that doing well at school was of paramount importance to her. "I think it's part of the immigrant life," she observed. 

The high expectations Retta's family had for her were not surprising, and make more sense when her background is considered. Retta's aunt, Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, served as the president of Liberia for 12 years, the first female elected head of state in Africa. In 2011, she was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize due to her ongoing efforts fighting for women's rights. In 2006, during her first year as president, Johnson Sirleaf appeared on the "The Oprah Winfrey Show." "That one was even cooler because I got more calls about her being on 'Oprah' than her winning the Nobel Prize," Retta told NPR's "Wait Wait ... Don't Tell Me!" 

While doing well in school and staying out of trouble were hallmarks of young Retta's childhood, coming of age in the Garden State definitely left an impression. "Growing up in Jersey makes you a little bit ballsier, a little more outspoken," the comedian told NJ.com of how New Jersey influenced her.

Meanwhile, Retta also grew up with the confidence that a career in show business was something she'd be able to achieve if she simply worked at it hard and long enough. As she explained to Edge Magazine, it was her keen grasp of empirical thinking that fostered that confidence. "I'm that person: If you want to do something, what are the steps to do it?" she said. 

Her ultimate goal was to star in her own television sitcom, and she correctly observed that one big pathway to sitcoms was standup comedy, as she could see in comics-turned-sitcom stars like Tim Allen and Roseanne Barr. She formulated a plan, and held an innate belief that she would make it in Hollywood. "There was never a doubt that I would get to where I wanted to go in this industry," she shared. "For me, it was just an anxiousness as to when. How long was it going to take?"

After graduating from high school, Retta went on to attend Duke University in North Carolina. She graduated in 1995, with a plan of taking a year off so she could study for the MCAT, and ultimately go to medical school. "I still have my MCAT study books and all my science notebooks in the closet of my guest room," she told Vulture. "Because I really feel like, if this does not work out, I can pack up those bags, move in with my parents, start studying for the MCATs, and go to medical school."

During that year, she landed a job as a chemist with GlaxoSmithKline in North Carolina. She also began hanging out at local comedy clubs in the Raleigh-Durham area, eventually hitting the stage for open-mic nights at a Raleigh club, Charlie Goodnights.

She began to craft an act, developing her onstage persona and writing material. She recalled her early days in comedy when she returned to Duke and spoke with students about her journey to Hollywood, and encouraged anyone with a goal of becoming a comic to start watching other comedians. "You start getting confidence by watching people who, you're like, 'Whoa, he's not good.' And then you get inspired by people," she said, via Duke Today.

It was during those open-mic nights that Marietta Sangai Sirleaf became Retta. "When I was in college, I hooked up with this guy from Georgia, and they pronounce Marietta, Ga., May-retta," she explained on NPR's "Wait Wait ... Don't Tell Me!" That became abbreviated to Retta, which her friends found so hilarious that they began calling her by that name as well. "And then so when I first started doing standup, I was doing an open mic and the emcee came out and said, who's next? I was like, 'Me.' He's like, 'What's your name?' 'Marietta Sirleaf.' 'What?' I was like, 'Just Retta,' and that's how I got Retta." Jokingly referring to her status as a Hollywood one-namer, she quipped, "Yeah, me, Cher, Bono — living that life."

As Retta gained more experience onstage, she decided it was time to take the next step. In January 1997, she packed up her belongings, loaded them into her car and drove to Los Angeles in order to pursue her dream of becoming a standup comic on a full-time basis. She spent her nights performing at comedy clubs, and her days auditioning for film and TV roles. 

She quickly realized the parts available for someone like her were few and far between, and that she was part of a group of Black female comic actors — including Wanda Sykes, Octavia Spencer, and Sherri Shepherd — consistently competing for those rare roles. "I feel like Sherri got every job that I didn't get before I started working," she recalled when interviewed by Vulture. "Seriously. Like, legit got every job that I went in for."

By 2008, all those auditions had paid off, and Retta had built up an impressive array of screen credits that ranged from "Moesha" to "It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia." That year, she landed a bit part in a sitcom pilot set in the parks and recreation department in the fictional town of Pawnee, Indiana. Her character, Donna Meagle, had no dialogue in the pilot, serving mainly as a background player. That all changed during a scene in an early episode when department deputy director Leslie Knope (played by "Saturday Night Live" alum Amy Poehler) — walked over to Donna's desk and gestured to a leaf pinned to her bulletin board. Retta, admitting that she "wasn't an improv person," told Vulture what happened next. "Leslie turns to me and says, 'Donna, where's this from?' And I said, 'Outside.' After they yelled 'Cut,' Amy died laughing. She was like, 'Oh my God — outside? I did not see that coming.'"

While that little piece of improv never did make it on the air, the exchange was revelatory for the show's writers, who suddenly realized that Retta's character could become a solid piece of the show's comedy firmament. Episode by episode, Donna's character took shape as the writers tailored the role to the actor playing her. "She knew what she wanted and there was nothing that was going to change her mind," Retta told Edge Magazine of the confident character she would inhabit for seven hit seasons.

As Retta's "Parks and Recreation" character grew into a favorite of fans, she was bumped up to a full-fledged series regular for the third season. Donna, in fact, became the show's secret weapon, with Retta reliably delivering hilarious deadpan one-liners that kept viewers in stitches.

It's fair to say that Donna hit her pinnacle in a season four episode that is not only one of the series' most memorable, but also spawned a holiday that continues to resonate with fans: Treat Yo' Self Day. In that episode, Donna and co-worker Tom (Aziz Ansari) reveal they take one day each year to indulge themselves. According to Retta, she didn't think the concept was anything special, until a friend who was on set that day told her that "Treat Yo' Self" was going to be huge. "I was like, Really?" she told Edge Magazine. She thought little of it until coming home the night the episode aired, and noticing that her social media was blowing up. "Then I looked on Twitter and I saw that everybody was tweeting 'TREAT YO' SELF' and tagging me. I was like, 'Whoa. Right!'" she recalled. 

Even after the series ended its run in 2015, Retta continues to be impacted by that episode. "If I don't hear it 10 times a day, I haven't left my house," she said during an appearance on "Late Night with Seth Meyers" in 2016.

When "Parks and Recreation" ended in 2015, Retta did not stay unemployed for long. That same year, she joined another show, Bravo comedy "Girlfriends' Guide to Divorce," which was already on the air. Following the same trajectory as her "Parks and Rec" role, Retta started off in a guest-starring capacity, and was then bumped up to series regular. 

While landing the gig playing Barbara on the heels of "Parks and Rec" would seem to be a no-brainer, Retta admitted that joining the show was kind of nerve-racking for her — because she was hired without having to audition, and wasn't entirely sure how to play the part. "So I was super super nervous my first day, and I was like, 'Hopefully I don't mess this up,'" she said while appearing on "Today" with co-hosts and real-life friends Hoda Kotb and Kathie Lee Gifford. "And when it did go so well, I was like, I calmed down and I was very happy and it did get to a place like, 'I could work here.'"

In August 2016, Bravo announced that "Girlfriends' Guide to Divorce" would end after its fifth season. Retta quickly moved on to another project, "Good Girls," a comedic drama about a trio of suburban women who find themselves in dire circumstances and turn to crime. Co-starring with former "Parenthood" star Mae Whitman and "Mad Men" alum Christina Hendricks, Retta portrayed Ruby Hill, who desperately needs cash to pay for her daughter's life-saving medical treatments.

Marking Retta's first starring role on television, "Good Girls" also represented an opportunity to demonstrate acting chops beyond the comedy sphere. "I'm excited that I get to work a muscle that I haven't really gotten to work so much," Retta told The Hollywood Reporter. "I got to do a little bit of drama in 'Girlfriends' Guide' ... but [in] this, I get to experience the full spectrum of TV emotion."

The show resonated with viewers, and was renewed for a second season — and then a third, and a fourth. In June 2021, weeks after the fourth season was green-lit, NBC announced plans to cancel "Good Girls" after that fourth season had wrapped. Retta subsequently revealed that a fifth season renewal was likely, until one of her co-stars caused the plug to be pulled. "One person ruined it for all of the cast and crew, and so it's not back," she divulged during an appearance on "Live with Kelly and Ryan" in 2022. "Trust me, Kelly! I'm salty," Retta told the show's co-host, Kelly Ripa, who'd transformed from soap opera darling to talk show royalty. While Retta didn't divulge that person's identity, reports claimed that stalled contract negotiations with actor Manny Montana contributed to the show's demise.

In 2018, Retta added "author" to her already jam-packed resume when her first book, "So Close to Being the S***, Y'all Don't Even Know," was published. Not quite a memoir, the book offered a series of essays in which she recounts her rags-to-riches rise to stardom. 

As Retta told Salon, it hadn't occurred to her to write a book until she received a call from a literary agent from the talent agency representing her. "And she said there's an editor who thinks you should write a book, let's set up a meeting." After that meeting, Retta agreed to put together a proposal, but soon realized what she'd gotten herself into. "It was a lot of work to do a book proposal. It stressed me out," she recalled. Ready to bail on the whole thing, a subsequent conversation with that agent gave her a change of heart. "Then she said, 'What if they offered you money to do the book?'" Retta recalled. "They offered me money and I was like, 'OK.' That's how it happened. They were like, 'Here's some money go write this book.' So I wrote the book and took the money."

A key chapter in the book focused on how "Parks and Recreation" changed her life. "Those were the glory days; I went from being a comic who was appearing on this show to being someone on this show — being a known entity in the business," she told Entertainment Weekly, admitting that recounting the experience for the book gave her fresh insight into just how far she'd come since then. "Writing that chapter just gave me perspective on what did happen and what can happen, and how things can change your life so easily," the actor-cum-author observed.

Just a few months after the renewal and abrupt cancelation of "Good Girls," in early 2022, Retta signed a holding deal with NBCUniversal, with the studio set to bring her potential TV and film projects in which she could star. As she said in a statement to The Hollywood Reporter, it was a good fit. "I've spent most of my career working with NBCUniversal, and I was lucky to have my first series regular role on 'Parks,' which continues to be beloved by a dedicated fan base," she said. "It's a cozy and familiar place for me."

A year later, in January 2023, news emerged about the first project from that deal, with NBC placing an order of a new whodunit series from "Good Girls" creator Jenna Bans. Titled "Murder by the Book," Retta was set to portray a woman renowned for her reviews of murder mystery novels, who then places everything she's learned from reading all those mysteries to become an amateur sleuth. 

A pilot was filmed, but NBC decided to take a pass. The studio reportedly attempted to shop "Murder by the Book" around to other networks and streaming services, but there were no takers.

Retta can never be accused of being predictable, a trait she demonstrated in 2021 when she unveiled her new TV project — which was neither a drama nor comedy, but a series for HGTV. With Retta as host, "Ugliest House in America" made its debut in 2022, and the network sought the "Parks and Recreation" alum for her comedic skills. "With Retta at the helm, [the show] is sure to be a hilarious and fun-filled journey of the country's oddest, wildest, and most ridiculous homes," said HGTV Senior Vice President of Production and Development Betsy Ayala (via People).

The show's concept was brilliant in its simplicity, with Retta touring the country's most garish and unsightly domiciles, with the one deemed to be the ugliest receiving a $150,000 makeover courtesy of former "Windy City Rehab" star Alison Victoria."I loooove a renovation 'before and after' so to have a front row seat from beginning to end in 'Ugliest House in America' is pretty damn exciting," Retta told Variety. 

The show proved to be an out-of-the box hit, with HGTV continually renewing the series; in fact, when the fifth season aired in 2024, ratings were through the roof, garnering an impressive 10 million viewers. That success spawned a Halloween-themed spinoff, with Retta bringing her hosting skills to "Scariest House in America," premiering in October 2024 (a second season debuted in the fall of 2025). In 2025, HGTV confirmed that new seasons of both shows had been ordered, indicating Retta's tenure with HGTV wouldn't be ending anytime soon.