Gervais' father originates from French Canada, and came to the UK on duty during the second world war, met a girl and settled down, working as a labourer. Raised as the youngest of four brothers, Gervais describes his childhood as "nice" and "normal".
Gervais started his career at London radio station XFM where he still DJ's a Saturday afternoon slot. He came to wider attention as an obnoxious persona in a slot which replaced Ali G on the Channel 4 comedy programme The 11 O'Clock Show and later went on to present his own comedy chat show for channel 4 called "Meet Ricky Gervais". The show was poorly received.