Jimmy Kimmel

James Christian Kimmel (born November 13, 1967) is an American television host and comedian. He is best known as the host and executive producer of Jimmy Kimmel Live!, which has aired on ABC since 2003. Kimmel has hosted the Primetime Emmy Awards three times, in 2012, 2016 and 2020, and the Academy Awards four times, in 2017, 2018, 2023, and 2024.

Before hosting Jimmy Kimmel Live!, Kimmel was the co-host of Comedy Central's The Man Show and Win Ben Stein's Money. Kimmel has also produced several TV shows, including Crank Yankers, Sports Show with Norm Macdonald, and The Andy Milonakis Show. In 2018, Time named him as one of the 100 most influential people in the world. Kimmel has the longest tenure of any current late-night television host in the United States. At 23 seasons, his tenure hosting a single late-night comedy-variety show is second only to Johnny Carson, who hosted The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson for 30 seasons. After Kimmel commented on the assassination of Charlie Kirk in his monologue on September 17, 2025, ABC suspended Jimmy Kimmel Live! for a week.

Early life and family

Kimmel was born in Brooklyn, New York City, and grew up in the neighborhood of Mill Basin. He is the eldest of the three children of Joan (née Iacono) and James John Kimmel, who worked at American Express and was an IBM executive.

He was raised Catholic and was an altar boy as a child. Kimmel's mother is of Italian descent; her grandparents migrated to the United States from Ischia, Naples, after the 1883 earthquake. Two of his paternal great-great-grandparents were German immigrants. His family's surname was Kümmel ('caraway' in German) several generations back. He obtained Italian citizenship in 2025.

He attended P.S. 236 elementary school before the family moved, when Kimmel was nine years old, to Las Vegas, where he befriended his neighbor Cleto Escobedo III, who would go on to be the bandleader on Jimmy Kimmel Live! He graduated from Ed W. Clark High School and attended the University of Nevada, Las Vegas (UNLV), for one year before his family moved to Arizona. He attended Arizona State University for the 1985–86 academic year and left without graduating. He received an honorary degree from UNLV in 2013.

Kimmel's uncle, Frank Potenza ("Uncle Frank"), appeared on Jimmy Kimmel Live! as a regular from 2003 until he died in 2011. His cousin Sal Iacono performed Kimmel's former co-hosting duties during the last season of Win Ben Stein's Money and then became a writer and sketch performer on Jimmy Kimmel Live! His Aunt Chippy (Concetta Potenza) is also a featured part of the show. His brother Jonathan works on the show as a director. His sister, Jill, is a comedian.

Career

Radio career

Inspired by David Letterman's start in radio, Kimmel began working in radio while in high school. He was the host of a Sunday night interview show on UNLV's college station, KUNV. While attending Arizona State University, he became a popular caller to the KZZP-FM afternoon show hosted by radio personalities Mike Elliott and Kent Voss in Phoenix, Arizona. In 1989, Kimmel landed his first paying job alongside Voss as morning drive co-host of The Me and Him Show at KZOK-FM in Seattle, Washington. Over the next 10 months, the hosts performed several stunts on air, including one that led to the loss of an $8,000 advertising contract with the Seattle Mariners.

In 1990, Kimmel and Voss were fired by KZOK and were fired again a year later at WRBQ-FM in Tampa. Kimmel went on to host his own show at KCMJ in Palm Springs, California, where he recruited as his intern Carson Daly, who had been a family friend since his childhood. After a morning stint at KRQQ in Tucson, Arizona, Kimmel landed at KROQ-FM in Los Angeles. He spent five years as "Jimmy The Sports Guy" for the Kevin and Bean morning show. During that time, he met and befriended the comedian Adam Carolla.

Comedy Central

Kimmel initially did not want to do television; he began writing for Fox announcers and promotions and was quickly recruited to do the on-air promotions himself. He declined several offers for television shows from producer Michael Davies, being uninterested in the projects, until he was offered a place as the comedic counterpart to Ben Stein on the game show Win Ben Stein's Money, which began airing on Comedy Central in 1997. His quick wit and "everyman" personality were counterpoints to Stein's monotonous vocal style and faux-patrician demeanor. The combination earned the pair an Emmy award for Best Game Show Host.

In 1999, during his time on Win Ben Stein's Money, Kimmel co-hosted (with Adam Carolla) and co-produced (with Daniel Kellison) Comedy Central's The Man Show. Kimmel left Win Ben Stein's Money in 2001 and was replaced by comedian Nancy Pimental, who was eventually replaced by Kimmel's cousin Sal Iacono. The Man Show's success allowed Kimmel, Carolla, and Kellison to create and produce, under the banner Jackhole Productions, Crank Yankers for Comedy Central (on which Kimmel plays the characters "Elmer Higgins", "Terrence Catheter", "The Nudge", "Karl Malone" and himself) and later The Andy Milonakis Show for MTV2. Kimmel also produced and co-wrote the feature film Windy City Heat, Festival Prize winner of the Comedia Award for Best Film at the 2004 Montreal Comedy Festival.

Jimmy Kimmel Live!

In January 2003, Kimmel permanently left The Man Show to host his own late-night talk show, Jimmy Kimmel Live!, on ABC. Jimmy Kimmel Live! was created as a permanent replacement for Politically Incorrect, which ABC canceled in June 2002 following widespread condemnation and advertiser boycotts over host Bill Maher's comments during the political panel talk show's first new episode after the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks suggesting that the perpetrators were not cowards (contravening remarks made by then-President George W. Bush the day prior to the broadcast), whereas "[American leaders had] been the cowards, lobbing cruise missiles from 2,000 miles away".

In April 2007, Stuffmagazine.com named Kimmel the "biggest badass on TV". Kimmel said it was an honor, but clearly a mistake. Despite its name, the show has not actually aired live since 2004, when censors were unable to properly bleep censor a curse word from Thomas Jane. During the 2004 NBA Finals in Detroit, Kimmel appeared on ABC's halftime show to make an on-air plug for his show. He suggested that if the Detroit Pistons defeated the Los Angeles Lakers, "they're gonna burn the city of Detroit down ... and it's not worth it." Officials with Detroit's ABC affiliate, WXYZ-TV, immediately announced that that night's show would not air on the station. Hours later, ABC officials pulled that night's show from the entire network. Kimmel later apologized.

In a running gag that lasted for years, Kimmel would end his show with "My apologies to Matt Damon, we ran out of time." When Matt Damon did actually appear on the show to be interviewed in 2006, he walked in and sat down only to be told just a few seconds later by Kimmel, "Unfortunately, we are totally out of time," followed by "my apologies to Matt Damon." Damon appeared angry, but both performers have since indicated that their faux-feud is a joke. In February 2008, Kimmel showed a mock music video with a panoply of stars called "I'm Fucking Ben Affleck" as "revenge" after his then-girlfriend Sarah Silverman and Damon recorded a similar video titled "I'm Fucking Matt Damon". Silverman's video originally aired on Jimmy Kimmel Live! going viral on YouTube. Kimmel's "revenge" video featured himself, Ben Affleck, and a large lineup of stars, particularly in scenes spoofing the 1985 "We Are the World" video: Christina Applegate, Lance Bass, Don Cheadle, Lauren Conrad, Cameron Diaz, Perry Farrell, Harrison Ford, Macy Gray, Josh Groban, Joan Jett, Dom Joly, Huey Lewis, Benji Madden and Joel Madden from Good Charlotte, Meat Loaf, Christopher Mintz-Plasse, Dominic Monaghan, Brad Pitt, Rebecca Romijn, Mike Shinoda, Pete Wentz, and Robin Williams, among others.

Afterwards, Kimmel's sidekick, Guillermo Rodriguez, appeared in a spoof of The Bourne Ultimatum, which starred Damon. He was then chased down by Damon, who was cursing about Kimmel being behind all this. Guillermo also stopped Damon on the red carpet one time and, before he could finish the interview, said, "Sorry, we are out of time." The most recent encounter was titled "The Handsome Men's Club" which featured Kimmel, along with the "Handsome Men", who were: Affleck, Ted Danson, Patrick Dempsey, Taye Diggs, Josh Hartnett, Ethan Hawke, John Krasinski, Lenny Kravitz, Rob Lowe, Gilles Marini, Matthew McConaughey, Tony Romo, Sting and Keith Urban, speaking about being handsome and all the jobs that come with it. At the end of the skit, Kimmel has a door slammed in his face by Damon, who says they have run out of time and gives a sinister laugh. Jennifer Garner makes a surprise appearance. As a tradition, celebrities voted off Dancing with the Stars appear on Jimmy Kimmel Live!, causing Kimmel to describe himself as "the three-headed dog the stars must pass on their way to No-Dancing Hell."