Jon Stewart Nearly Took Jimmy Kimmel’s Late-Night Throne — and ABC Was Ready to Let It Happen.NH
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Jimmy Kimmel has revealed that he almost lost his late-night show, Jimmy Kimmel Live, to another famous talk-show host, Jon Stewart.
Chatting on the Ted Danson podcast, Where Everybody Knows Your Name, Kimmel shared that in 2003, Jon Stewart, host of The Daily Show, was also majorly in the running for the same late-night spot. He was certainly considered more successful than Kimmel at the time.
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Kimmel and Stewart had the same manager, James Dixon. Dixon was on the precipice of closing the deal for Stewart with ABC when the ABC chairman, Lloyd Braun, decided to watch Kimmel’s tape at the very last minute. He liked it enough to pass it on to Bob Iger.
Subsequently, just when the papers were as good as signed for Stewart, Iger and Braun decided to go with Kimmel. Kimmel admitted, “It was a very strange thing because [James] was in the difficult position of having to tell Jon, ‘Uh, you’re not going to ABC, but Jimmy is going to ABC.’”
Kimmel shared that he was so shocked, he demanded an explanation for the choice from Iger. Kimmel explained, “I said, ‘What was it, like why ‘this is quite a leap that you guys made. I was on The Man Show, I was doing football picks on Fox NFL Sunday — what was it?’ He goes, ‘Well, you were cheaper.’ And everybody laughed, but I knew he wasn’t kidding.”
Humbly, he finished the story, “That was a mistake, by the way. They definitely should hire Jon. If I’m in that position, there’s no question I hire John 100 times out of 100.”
The late-night show was caught in the middle of the political turmoil in America recently, after an indefinite suspension led to Kimmel’s show being off-air for six consecutive days.
The suspension was due to Kimmel’s comments on Charlie Kirk’s death, which were not taken well by the network. Among other comments, Kimmel condemned Trump’s personal reaction to Kirk’s death, saying, “This is not how an adult grieves the murder of someone he calls a friend. This is how a four-year-old mourns a goldfish.” A
BC labelled his comments “offensive and insensitive at a critical time in our national political discourse”.
Trump has since threatened to sue ABC for allowing Kimmel back on the air. He wrote online: “I think we’re going to test ABC out on this. Let’s see how we do. Last time I went after them, they gave me 16 Million Dollars. This one sounds even more lucrative. A true bunch of losers! Let Jimmy Kimmel rot in his bad Ratings.”
