Jimmy Kimmel revealed that ABC originally planned to hire Jon Stewart as its late-night host before changing direction and offering the job to Kimmel.
Kimmel, appearing on the Where Everybody Knows Your Name podcast this week, recalled that ABC was “about to hire Jon Stewart” when executives shifted course.
“They wanted a traditional late-night talk show in that slot, which nobody knew,” Kimmel said. “They were almost about to hire Jon Stewart, and Jon and I have the same manager, James ‘Baby Doll’ Dixon. And James was about to close this deal for Jon to host the show.”
According to Kimmel, the decision changed after ABC chairman Lloyd Braun viewed Kimmel’s audition tape and shared it with then-Disney executive Bob Iger.
“Lloyd watched the tape, and he was like, ‘I think this might be the guy.’ And he brought the tape to Bob Iger, and Iger said, ‘Yeah, I think this might be the guy,'” Kimmel said.
Kimmel described the situation as awkward because he and Stewart were represented by the same manager.
“Now [Dixon’s] in the difficult position of having to tell Jon, ‘Uh, you’re not going to ABC, but Jimmy is going to ABC,'” Kimmel said.
Though he went on to host “Jimmy Kimmel Live!,” which premiered in January 2003, Kimmel said he still believes Stewart was the better choice.
“That was a mistake, by the way,” he said. “They definitely should’ve hired Jon. If I’m in that position, there’s no question I hire Jon 100 times out of 100.”
Kimmel also recalled confronting Iger about why he was chosen over Stewart.
“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,” Kimmel said.
Stewart, who hosted “The Daily Show” from 1999 to 2015 and returned to the program this year, made headlines this week for comments about President Donald Trump.
On Monday’s episode, Stewart told Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., that Trump was “the most socialist president of my lifetime,” saying, “You could almost make a case that the true inheritor of the Sanders revolution is Trump.”
Kimmel’s remarks came weeks after ABC briefly suspended “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” following backlash to a Sept. 15 segment in which he criticized right-wing efforts to politicize the shooting of conservative leader Charlie Kirk.
FCC Chair Brendan Carr publicly condemned the comments, and Trump later wrote on Truth Social, “I can’t believe ABC Fake News gave Jimmy Kimmel his job back.”
“Jimmy Kimmel Live!” has since resumed broadcasting.
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