Ali İhsan Varol

Ali İhsan Varol — Biography

Ali İhsan Varol is a Turkish television presenter, producer and actor of Circassian descent, born on 28 June 1976 in Istanbul with family roots in the Pınarbaşı district of Kayseri. He enrolled in several programs at Ankara University — astronomy, history and public administration — without completing any of them, and afterward spent time working in car rental and tourism in Bodrum.

He entered television as a production assistant, a role he held for four years before moving into scriptwriting. He later became widely known as the host and producer of the game show Kelime Oyunu, which was taken off air amid controversy in 2013, returned on FOX in 2014, went on hiatus again, and resumed on tv2 in 2017 before Varol handed the hosting role to İbrahim Selim in 2023.

His acting career began with the 1998 series Çarli, and he later appeared in the 2014 series Kardeş Payı, where he also joined the writing team. That same year he made a cameo appearance as himself in Recep İvedik 4, and in 2023 he played a journalist in the film İllegal Hayatlar.