Ned Arnel Mencia (born October 22, 1967), known professionally as Carlos Mencia (and previously Ned Holness) is a Honduran-born American comedian, writer, and actor. His style of comedy is often political and involves issues of race, culture, criminal justice, and social class. He is best known as the host of the Comedy Central show Mind of Mencia which produced four seasons before being cancelled in 2008.
Mencía was born in San Pedro Sula, Honduras, the seventeenth of eighteen children. His mother, Magdelena Mencía, was Mexican, and his father, Roberto Holness, was Honduran. At the time of his birth, Mencía's mother was engaged in a domestic dispute with his father, and declined to give her son his biological father's last name. The name appearing on his birth certificate is "Ned Arnel Mencía," although Mencia has said that out of respect for his biological father, he went by the Holness name anyway, and was known as "Ned Holness" until he was eighteen years old.