<\/p>\n
Jimmy Kimmel Live!<\/em> was nearly Jon Stewart Live!<\/em> During a visit to Ted Danson\u2019s\u00a0Where Everybody Knows Your Name<\/em> podcast, Jimmy Kimmel revealed how he inadvertently swiped the ABC gig from fellow comic Jon Stewart.<\/p>\n In the early 2000s, ABC was on the hunt for someone to host a late-night show, said Kimmel. \u201cNightline<\/em> was in the slot, and then Bill Maher\u2019s show, Politically Incorrect<\/em>, followed it,\u201d he continued. \u201cThey wanted a traditional late-night talk show in that slot, which nobody knew.\u201d Kimmel said that the network planned to hire the Daily Show<\/em> host and that his manger, James \u201cBaby Doll\u201d Dixon \u2014\u00a0who also happens to be Stewart\u2019s manger \u2014 \u201cwas about to close the deal.\u201d However, that\u2019s when Michael Davies, an ABC executive, told Lloyd Braun, the company\u2019s then-chairman, to \u201cwatch a tape of this other guy.\u201d<\/p>\n More from Rolling Stone<\/strong><\/p>\n \u201cLloyd watched the tape, and he was like, \u2018I think this might be the guy.\u2019 And he brought the tape to Bob Iger, and Iger said, \u2018Yeah, I think this might be the guy,\u201d said Kimmel. He called the predicament a \u201cvery strange thing,\u201d since Dixon was now in the \u201cdifficult position of having to tell John, \u2018You\u2019re not going to ABC, but Jimmy is going to ABC.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThat was a mistake by the way. They definitely should\u2019ve hire Jon,\u201d Kimmel added. \u201cIf I\u2019m in that position, there\u2019s no question I hire John 100 times out of a 100.\u201d The former Man Show<\/em> co-host, who was mystified that he got the gig over Stewart, said he asked Iger why they picked him; Iger replied, \u201cWell, you were cheaper.\u201d<\/p>\n Kimmel concluded his story, telling Danson: \u201cSometimes it pays to be cheaper.\u201d<\/p>\n The podcast episode posted on Wednesday was filmed just days before ABC \u201cindefinitely<\/a>\u201d suspended Kimmel on\u00a0Sept. 17 over comments he made on\u00a0Jimmy Kimmel Live!<\/em>\u00a0about the assassination of far-right activist Charlie Kirk, and following a\u00a0threat from President Donald Trump\u2019s FCC chair, Brendan Carr.<\/p>\n Following the network\u2019s decision, fellow late-night hosts \u2014 Stewart, Stephen Colbert, Seth Meyers, Jimmy Fallon, John Oliver, Conan O\u2019Brien, James Corden, Jay Leno, Howard Stern, and David Letterman, among them \u2014 showed support for Kimmel. Amid the fierce backlash against the network, more than 400 artists and entertainment industry figures signed an\u00a0open letter published from the ACLU<\/a>.<\/p>\n On Sept. 22, Disney announced that\u00a0Jimmy Kimmel Live!<\/em> would return to the ABC airwaves the next evening. The\u00a0host\u2019s broadcast return to late-night television<\/a> brought in 6.2 million views, four times\u00a0his usual audience, according to data from Nielsen. Kimmel\u2019s first monologue following the suspension also has reached 22 million views on YouTube and counting, making it his most-watched monologue of all time on the platform.<\/p>\n Best of Rolling Stone<\/strong><\/p>\n Sign up for RollingStone’s Newsletter<\/a>. For the latest news, follow us on Facebook<\/a>, Twitter<\/a>, and Instagram<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n \u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n \u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.yahoo.com \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Jimmy Kimmel Live! was nearly Jon Stewart Live! During a visit to Ted Danson\u2019s\u00a0Where Everybody Knows Your Name podcast, Jimmy Kimmel revealed how he inadvertently swiped the ABC gig from fellow comic Jon Stewart. In the early 2000s, ABC was on the hunt for someone to host a late-night show, said Kimmel. \u201cNightline was in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2109641,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[25172],"tags":[375104,23571,23060,38667,399494,348479],"class_list":["post-2109640","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-entertainment","tag-bob-iger","tag-jimmy-fallon","tag-jimmy-kimmel","tag-jon-stewart","tag-lloyd-braun","tag-ted-danson"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/Jimmy-Kimmel-Reveals-ABC-Almost-Hired-Jon-Stewart-for-Late-Night.jpeg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2109640","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2109640"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2109640\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2109642,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2109640\/revisions\/2109642"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2109641"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2109640"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2109640"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2109640"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}