Jimmy Kimmel has revealed that ABC originally had his friend and fellow late-night host Jon Stewart in mind to host its late-night talk show back in the early 2000s.
Appearing on the latest episode of Ted Danson‘s Where Everybody Knows Your Name podcast, Kimmel said ABC was close to signing a deal with The Daily Show host before the executives changed their mind and decided to hire him instead.
“They wanted a traditional late-night talk show in that slot,” Kimmel said, per The Daily Beast, referring to how ABC was looking to replace Bill Maher‘s Politically Incorrect after it ended in 2002. “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.”
The comedian shared that then-ABC chairman Lloyd Braun ended up watching his tape and was like, “I think this might be the guy.”
“He brought the tape to (Disney CEO) Bob Iger, and Iger said, ‘Yeah, I think this might be the guy,’” Kimmel continued. “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.’”
At the time, Kimmel was known for his work on the Comedy Central sketch show The Man Show, and so was surprised that ABC would choose him to host a traditional late-night talk show.
“That was a mistake, by the way,” he told Danson. “They definitely should hire Jon. If I’m in that position, there’s no question I hire John 100 times out of a 100.”
Kimmel noted that he later asked Iger about why he decided to hire him over the more experienced Stewart, who had been hosting The Daily Show since 1999.
“[Iger] goes, ‘Well, you were cheaper.’ And everybody laughed, but I knew he wasn’t kidding,” Kimmel stated.
Jimmy Kimmel Live! premiered in 2003 and has since aired over 3,500 episodes. On the podcast, Kimmel admitted it’s his “vision of hell” watching back his first year of shows. “It took us a long time to figure it out,” he said, “and we’re very fortunate to get a long time to figure it out.”
He also shared how ABC was “good enough to keep us on the air” despite his mouth getting them into trouble. “I was causing trouble once every, like, two and a half months, some major thing was happening,” he recalled. “Something that came out of my mouth, you know, and caused a whole thing. It was just tumultuous.”
Kimmel’s show was temporarily suspended last month after backlash to comments the host made on-air about the fatal shooting of conservative activist Charlie Kirk. The suspension followed the refusal of powerful station group Nexstar to air the show on its 32 broadcast affiliates.
The suspension was later lifted, with Kimmel’s return show on Tuesday, September 23, reaching 6.3 million viewers, making it the second most-watched broadcast in the show’s history.
Jimmy Kimmel Live!, Weeknights, 11:35 pm ET/PT, ABC
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