Jeff Timmons Biography

Jeff Timmons, born in Canton, Ohio on April 30, 1973, to James and Patricia Timmons, is an American singer, and the founding of the pop group 98 Degrees. As a young man, Timmons played college football and was in Kent State’s excellent psychology program. However, not so much on a whim but in response to his own love of music, decided to take the risk and leave Kent state. He went out to California to find a career in entertainment. This resulted in minor acting roles in commercials, but he was substantially more interested in music.

Through a mutual friend, Timmons met Nick Lachey who was working for his sports medicine degree in Miami at the time. Like Timmons, Lachey had a good voice and Timmons wanted to create a boyband. Lachey suggested his brother Drew (then an EMT) and his friend Justin Jeffre—a history student—since both were talented musicians themselves.

Their success was minor—they worked as a barbershop quartet from time to time, and sometimes worked as a cover band.

Eventually they were signed to the Motown label, but it wasn’t until 1998 when they became a huge hit. Disney has a way of making people stars, and for many musicians, it was Disney’s animated musicals that often turned talented but lesser known acts into something everybody knew the world over. In this case, Timmons and 98 Degrees garnered great attention for the song “True to Your Heart,” a duet with Stevie Wonder for the Disney film Mulan that catapulted their popularity.

Jeff Timmons And 98 Degrees And Rising

Their label saw potential and worked with the band in creating their first album—98 Degrees and Rising which went on to sell four million copies in the United States alone, and millions more overseas. Two of the singles of the album (“Because of You” and “The Hardest Thing” peaked on the Billboard Hot 100 at numbers 3 and 5 respectively Their sound—a mix of pop, R&B and soul would influence many and be imitated by many more.

The success led to the band leaving the Motown label for its parent company, the much larger Universal. 98 Degrees toured internationally in 2002, and released three more albums. Altogether, the four 98 Degrees albums went platinum. While collaborating with Mariah Carey and Joe, the group released the single “Thank God I Found You” which was the No. 1 hit on the Billboard Hot 100. The single went gold and stayed on the top 200 singles chart for 51 weeks.

Jeff Timmons Solo Career

By 2003, the band decided to take a hiatus to work on solo projects. Jeffre went into politics and new media, the Lachey brothers started a family and Timmons released a solo album called Whisper That Way.

In 2006, Timmons was involved with the reality show Mission: Man Band where he created a new group called Sureshot and was comprised of Bryan Adams, Rich Cronin, Chris Kirkpatrick and Timmons himself.

Jeff Timmons Chippendales And Men Of The Strip

Outside of music and hosting, Timmons was also interested in male stripping. For four weeks in 2011, he was the emcee and singer for the Chippendales Las Vegas show.

More recently, he created the reality show Men of the Strip which has been likened as a real-life Magic Mike; however, Timmons’ spin on it is different. Not only do he and his fellow performers dance and strip from odd costumes, they also sing and put on a show.

Jeff Timmons Interview

uInterview spoke with Jeff Timmons while he was promoting Men of the Strip, and spoke highly both of the team he put together and of stripping in general. “[Chippendales] is a little old and diminished. So, what I did was I thought, ‘Man, we should create something new, younger, cooler, more pop culture,’” Timmons told uInterview exclusively.

Jeff Timmons and the 98 Degrees Reunion

Despite being on hiatus, 98 Degrees did reunite on a few small occasions. In 2004 it was to song on Nick & Jessica’s Family Christmas TV special. In 2005, they performed at Over-the-Rhine to support Justin Jeffre’s run for mayor of Cincinnati. They also reunited for one-off performances at the Mixtape Festival and on The Today Show.

In 2012, however, all the members were again free to have a full reunion, and decided to record another studio album; they also announced they were going on tour with Boyz II Men and New Kids on the Block.

In 2013, 98 Degrees released their first album in a decade, 2.0.

Watch Jeff Timmons video uInterview on being a stripper: