Jimmy Kimmel has a clear vision for how he’d like his late-night show to end. And it does not involve pressure from the Trump administration.
Kimmel described what ending the show “on his terms” would look like during his appearance alongside his wife (and Jimmy Kimmel Live executive producer) Molly McNearney on the We Can Do Hard Things podcast.
Reflecting on their brief suspension from ABC over FCC threats following his comments about MAGA’s reaction to Charlie Kirk, Kimmel said, “If I’d not been allowed back on the air, I’d be a martyr. It’s not a terrible position to be in as a comedian,” but “it’s not the position I wanted to be in. And it’s also not the way I wanted the show.”
When ABC announced the suspension of Kimmel’s show in response to open threats from Donald Trump’s FCC Chair Brendan Carr, the network did not specify when or if the show would ever return. Kimmel said that the uncertainty made he and McNearney consider all the things they wouldn’t get to do if the show ended “abruptly.”
He explained, “I’ve been doing this show for almost 23 years, it’ll be 23 years in January. And I want to end the show on my terms.”
“I want to end it in a graceful way,” Kimmel continued. “I want to have a farewell party with our staff. I want to do all those things. I want to say the things that I want to say to people, and to just have it happen abruptly, and unjustly, would have been awful. It’s just not how you want it to go.”
Added McNearney, “An interesting wave I think we both felt was mourning, right after” ABC suspended the show. “Because we felt we weren’t coming back and we didn’t have a shot to write our ending the way we wanted to… When we left here, we didn’t know if we were going to see people again,” McNearney went on. “It was a very strange feeling.”
Kimmel agreed, “And to say goodbye, really,” to “the audience too, not just our staff, but also like the people who watch the show. It’s just, one day you’re on and the next day you’re not, and that’s not what I imagined or wanted. So, I was hoping that we would come back.”
The host said he wasn’t certain that the suspension was temporary, however he thinks it was “probably the intention the whole time,” for ABC to bring the show back. “We weren’t fired, we were suspended, and I think suspended means come back, but it just didn’t feel like that to me at the time.”
McNearney said that despite the “danger” of being on Trump’s bad side, “I really love getting under his skin.” She told Kimmel, “I know you agree, in that taking a little bit of pleasure in it when we see that it’s bothering” Trump. “It brings us a little bit of joy, because it feels like we’re one of the only ones who are getting in there, and he hates it so much that he has to respond and I love that.” Kimmel added, “It’s so childish, the response.”
McNearney continued, “It’s like, just complain privately. We don’t need to know every thought you have about us. It’s kind of wonderful that he shares it. I mean, it’s dangerous for us, but it also, to me, means we’re doing the job well.”
