Amid the drama after Jimmy Kimmel was kicked off the air in September, the late-night host opens up about how he got the job for Jimmy Kimmel Live! He reveals the role should have originally gone to Jon Stewart, but it didn’t work out that way.
In an interview with theWhere Everybody Knows Your Namepodcast, Kimmel looks back at when he was brought in to ABC under false pretenses. The network was ready to hire The Daily Show host when a producer from Win Ben Stein’s Money suggested they watch a tape of Kimmel.
“They called me in and they said that they wanted to meet with me about a Thursday night variety show, which I was not interested in,” Kimmel said.
“And they said, ‘Come on, meet the president of ABC.’ I went in, we never talked about me doing a show. He just asked me a bunch of questions about [CBS late-night host David] Letterman. And we talked about Letterman for like 90 minutes.”
Kimmel went on to explain that he and Stewart had the same manager at the time, and had to awkwardly tell Stewart he wasn’t going to ABC. The late-night hosts joked that maybe it was because he was “cheaper.”
In good spirits, Kimmel praises Stewart and thought his fellow host should have been hired instead.
“That was a mistake by the way. They definitely should hire Jon. If I’m in that position, there’s no question I hire Jon. One hundred times out of a hundred,” he said.
Kimmel went on to host Jimmy Kimmel Live!, which premiered in January 2003. He has since become the longest-running late-night host currently on air, with two decades under his belt at ABC.
Stewart, in return, became a household name, joining Comedy Central’s The Daily Show in 1999 after replacing original host Craig Kilborn. He hosted the show until 2015, before returning in 2021 in The Problem with Jon Stewart until 2024. Shortly after, he returned to his original hosting chair at The Daily Show.
