Jaime Elizabeth Pressly (born July 30, 1977) is an American actress and model. She is best known for playing Joy Turner on the NBC sitcom My Name Is Earl, for which she was nominated for two Emmy Awards (winning one) as well as a Golden Globe Award and a Screen Actors Guild Award. She has also appeared in films such as Poison Ivy: The New Seduction (1997), Joe Dirt (2001), DOA: Dead or Alive (2006), and I Love You, Man (2009). She currently portrays Jill Kendall in the television series Mom.
Pressly was born in Kinston, North Carolina, the daughter of Brenda Sue (née Smith), a dance instructor, and James Liston Pressly, a car salesman. In 1992, she moved with her family to Costa Mesa, California, where she spent the first semester of her high school sophomore year. She spent her childhood and early teenage years training as a gymnast, which led her to modeling jobs.
At age 14, Pressly appeared on her first cover, Teen Magazine, and became the official spokesmodel for the International Cover Model Search. At 15, she dropped out of school and went to Japan on a modeling contract. She succeeded in having herself legally emancipated from her parents at the age of 15 so she could travel to Japan, as neither of her parents could make the trip.