Jeffrey Dean Morgan was born on April 22, 1966, in Seattle, Washington, and grew up in the suburb of Kirkland. He attended Lake Washington High School, where he excelled at basketball, before enrolling at Skagit Valley College. A knee injury ended his basketball career, and he pivoted toward the arts before eventually moving to Los Angeles.

His television career began in the 1990s with small roles in series such as Walker, Texas Ranger, ER, and Sliders. His breakthrough came in 2006 when he landed recurring roles on ABC’s Grey’s Anatomy and CW’s Supernatural. From there, his career expanded to include films such as Watchmen (2009) and P.S. I Love You (2007), and TV roles in Weeds, The Good Wife, and Amazon’s The Boys.

In 2016, Morgan began his most iconic role — the menacing Negan in AMC’s The Walking Dead — which he continued in the spinoff The Walking Dead: Dead City (2023–present). In May 2025, he made his unscripted TV debut as host and executive producer of NBC’s Destination X, a travel competition series. Off-screen, Morgan lives on a 100-acre farm in Rhinebeck, New York, with his wife and two children.