Actor, Comedian & Co-Creator — Workaholics | The Righteous Gemstones | Pitch Perfect

Adam Devine's Rolex Submariner: The Man Who Was Hit by a Cement Truck at 11 and Turned It Into a Comedy Career

At age eleven, a 42-ton cement truck struck him, fractured both legs, and required multiple surgeries over two years. He used humour to cope during recovery — and never stopped. Workaholics. Bumper Allen in Pitch Perfect. Kelvin Gemstone in The Righteous Gemstones. Adam Devine built one of the most enduring comedy careers of his generation from the wreckage of a childhood accident. On his wrist: a Rolex Submariner — a watch built to survive conditions that would destroy lesser equipment.

Adam Devine — Rolex Submariner on wrist. Source: YouTube

Rolex Submariner — unidirectional bezel, luminous markers, Oyster case

▶ Source: YouTube

Adam Patrick Devine was born November 7, 1983, in Waterloo, Iowa, and grew up in Omaha, Nebraska. At age eleven, he was struck by a 42-ton cement truck — an accident that fractured both legs and required multiple surgeries over the following two years, with health complications that have continued into adulthood. By his own account, he used humour as a coping mechanism throughout the long recovery. It is the origin story of the entire career. He graduated from Millard South High School in 2002, attended Orange Coast College in California — where he met future collaborators Blake Anderson and others — and went on to study at the American Conservatory Theater in San Francisco before moving to Los Angeles.

In 2006, Devine and friends Kyle Newacheck, Anders Holm, and Blake Anderson formed Mail Order Comedy, a sketch-comedy group that built its audience through YouTube and Myspace before Comedy Central offered them a series. The result was Workaholics (2011–2017), which Devine co-created, co-wrote, executive produced, and starred in for seven seasons — ending as one of Comedy Central's most successful programmes. Around the same time, Elizabeth Banks approached him to audition for Pitch Perfect. He was cast as Bumper Allen, the arrogant rival a cappella conductor, winning a Teen Choice Award for Choice Movie Villain and reprising the role across two sequels and the Peacock series Pitch Perfect: Bumper in Berlin. He had a recurring role as Andy Bailey on Modern Family from 2014 to 2016 and appeared in a string of films including Mike and Dave Need Wedding Dates, The Lego Batman Movie (as The Flash), and Isn't It Romantic.

From 2019 to 2025, he starred as Kelvin Gemstone in the HBO comedy series The Righteous Gemstones alongside John Goodman, Danny McBride, and Edi Patterson — playing the youngest, most chaotically unformed member of a televangelist dynasty with a physical commitment and emotional specificity that earned some of the best reviews of his career. He is married to actress Chloe Bridges, whom he met on the set of The Final Girls. He also competes regularly in stand-up comedy, having performed at the Montreal Comedy Festival at age 22.

"An early interest in comedy sparked after a childhood accident, where he used humor to cope with recovery." — On the origins of Adam Devine's comedy career

Built to Take It

The Rolex Submariner was engineered around one non-negotiable requirement: it must keep working in conditions that destroy unprotected equipment. That requirement has been constant since 1953 through every movement update and case refinement. The bezel turns only one direction because error in a dive environment is not recoverable. The crown locks down because water finds any gap. The movement is certified accurate because a few seconds per day compounds over a career into something meaningful. The Submariner does not break. It absorbs what is asked of it — pressure, impact, salt water, decades of daily wear — and continues to run.

Adam Devine was eleven when a cement truck hit him. He spent two years in surgery and has managed related health complications since. He turned the experience into fuel for a career spanning sketch television, musical comedy films, network sitcoms, animated features, and acclaimed HBO drama. The Submariner on his wrist is the watch that does not break — which, on the wrist of someone who has taken more than most people and kept going, is the watch that fits.

From YouTube to HBO

The career trajectory is, on paper, improbable. A kid from Omaha who survived a cement truck strike starts posting sketch videos with three friends in 2006. Comedy Central calls. Seven seasons of Workaholics. Elizabeth Banks casts him as a villain in a musical comedy that becomes a franchise. John Goodman and Danny McBride cast him in The Righteous Gemstones, where his physical commitment to Kelvin Gemstone — a grown man in the permanent grip of arrested development — earned the best critical reception of his career. The Rolex Submariner was designed for people who go into environments most people don't and need the equipment on their wrist to work correctly when it matters. The Devine career has operated on exactly that principle. Every time it counted, the thing worked.

More Rolex Submariner Spots on Spot.Watch

• Jeff Saturday (ESPN Get Up) — Rolex Submariner
• Jack Selby — Rolex Submariner
• Brian Simpson — Rolex Submariner
• Jerome Powell — Rolex Submariner
• Shane Gillis — Rolex Submariner
• Ryan Clark (Monday Night Football) — Rolex Submariner
• Henry Cejudo — Rolex Submariner
• Mark Consuelos — Rolex Submariner
• Adam Devine — Rolex Submariner
• Will Arnett (Agree to Disagree) — Rolex Submariner
• Graham Stephan — Rolex Datejust & Submariner Date

And at Spot.Watch — that's always worth noticing.