Are you planning to leave at night? Jimmy KimmelIt was suggested that he might quit his late-night talk program. Jimmy Kimmel LiveIn the near future.
“I wish I knew [what] I was gonna do,” the comedian, 54, told VarietyIn an interview published Thursday, June 2, he spoke out about his contract with ABC. It expires next year. “I have moments where I go, ‘I cannot do this anymore.’ And I have moments where I go, ‘What am I gonna do with my life if I’m not doing this anymore?’ It’s a very complicated thing. And there are practical considerations, and there are family and friend considerations and coworker considerations.”
Still, Kimmel continued: “Eventually, I am going to have to stop doing this. I’m not going to do this forever. I would not be honest if i said that I have made a decision. I’m thinking about it a lot, though.”
Jimmy Kimmel and Adam Sandler on ‘Jimmy Kimmel Live!’ ABC/Randy Holmes
Kimmel has made his talk show more personal since its inception in January 2003. Kimmel is well-known for his passionate and emotionally charged monologues on controversial subjects such as gun control and healthcare. He implied that this was one of the things that has been most difficult.
“There is a certain amount of pessimism that infects you, when you’ve talked about this multiple times,” he told the outlet in the wake of the mass shooting at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, last month that left 19 dead. “Because the first time you think, ‘What I’m saying seems to make sense. It’s pretty much what everyone else is thinking. Maybe this will reach someone. Maybe there’ll be a handful of Republican senators, Congresspeople who go, ‘Hey, This is nuts. We can’t — this can’t keep happening.’”
He continued: “But then it doesn’t.”
The Man Show alum admitted that it can be “difficult” for him to cover so many national tragedies. “And it’s somewhat shocking. It happens again. And then it happens again,” he says. “And it happens when you’re on break, and you’re not even on television. And at a certain point, you feel like, what am I screaming into the void here?”
Kimmel added: “But what are you gonna do, give up? What are you going talk about, the NBA playoffs. You can’t. You have to talk about what is on everyone’s mind.”
The Who Wants To Be A Millionaire? host’s tackling of major news topics has also occasionally landed him in hot water. Kimmel joked in April about Will SmithHypothetically slapping congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene. “This woman, Klan mom, is especially upset with the three Republican senators who said they’ll vote yes on Ketanji Brown Jackson, who’s nominated for the Supreme Court,” he explained during a segment on April 5. “Where is Will Smith when you really need him?”
Greene, 47 years old, replied that she had reported Kimmel at the Capitol Police for her threats of violence. “@ABC this threat of violence against me by @jimmykimmel has been filed with the @CapitolPolice,” she wrote via Twitter at the time. Kimmel fired back in a tweet of his own: “Officer? I would like to report a joke.”
He spoke out in a monologue about the situation two days later. “Not only don’t I condone death or any kind of threats against anyone, especially since I get dozens of them a week myself from the sickos who align with you, I also find it very rich that a person who [shot a semi-automatic gun]Her campaign ad whines about fantasies of violence. … She’s a snowflake and a sociopath at the same time.”
Jimmy Kimmel LiveABC weeknights at 11 :35 p.m. ET.
