Jimmy Kimmel ‘wished his talk show was cancelled’ due to struggle with landing guests

Jimmy Kimmel has reflected that in the early years of his late night show he ‘wished it would be cancelled’ because he ‘didn’t know’ what he was doing and would furiously ring up friends to appear as guests.

The 57-year-old comedian has hosted Jimmy Kimmel Live! since 2003, but has now confessed to struggling in the early years of the show’s run, having landed the role eight years after his first TV appearance.

During an appearance on the Where Everybody Knows Your Name podcast, recorded days before his show was pulled from ABC last month, Jimmy shared: ‘I didn’t know what I was doing, and I would pray that they cancelled the show sometimes.

‘I didn’t want to quit because I didn’t want to disappoint all the many people who worked for me, but I couldn’t … I was just, I couldn’t do it anymore.’

He explained: ‘We didn’t have guests many times. Now keep in mind this show was on, we’d go on the air live at midnight at 12:05 am, and there were times where it was 5:30 in the afternoon and we didn’t have guests for that night’s show. And I would just have to pick up the phone and call my friends. And that’s not how you go into a show.’

Jimmy, who also admitted he never intended to be on TV while working in radio years prior, said his ‘version of hell’ is being forced to watch his early shows back.

‘It is as painful as anything. It took us a long time to figure it out. Somehow we were fortunate enough to have a long time to figure it out,’ he reflected.

When praised by podcast hosts Ted Danson and Woody Harrelson for his ‘courage’ in facing US political issues head on in his shows, Jimmy reflected he has ‘no choice but to talk about it’.

‘The way I was brought up, it makes perfect sense. It especially bothers me being brought up Catholic in a positive environment, that Christianity has been co-opted in such a way,’ he said of the state of US politics.

‘That I find very upsetting. I think about what Jesus would think of this stuff, and it’s pretty clear he wouldn’t approve of nannies being yanked out of the park and thrust into a van to be returned to their home countries because their paperwork isn’t in order,’ he said in reference to the ICE immigration raids.

‘That seems very obvious to me. I think it is to most people. But it’s because such an “us versus them” – a bit like sports,’ he said, adding: ‘I hope foolishly it will resonate with those who don’t have their minds completely made up.’

The comedian recently returned to work after his TV show was suspended following controversial remarks that he made about Tyler Robinson, the man accused of fatally shooting Charlie Kirk, the right-wing political activist, in September.

The comedian suggested that Robinson was aligned to the Make America Great Again movement.

He said in an opening monologue: ‘We hit some new lows over the weekend with the MAGA gang desperately trying to characterise this kid who murdered Charlie Kirk as anything other than one of them and doing everything they can to score political points from it. In between the finger-pointing, there was grieving.’

Jimmy was initially suspended before the Walt Disney Company announced that Jimmy Kimmel Live! would make a comeback after huge backlash throughout Hollywood and beyond.

The company said in a statement: ‘Last Wednesday, we made the decision to suspend production on the show to avoid further inflaming a tense situation at an emotional moment for our country. It is a decision we made because we felt some of the comments were ill-timed and thus insensitive.

‘We have spent the last days having thoughtful conversations with Jimmy, and after those conversations, we reached the decision to return the show on Tuesday.’

Despite Trump declaring the comedian could ‘rot in his bad ratings’ in a lengthy, rambling post on Truth Social, while suggesting he was taken off air for ‘lack of talent’, the real figures could not be more different.

In fact, it has become the most-watched regularly-scheduled episode of Jimmy Kimmel Live! ever, drawing in 6.3 million viewers – beaten only by the 2006 and 2014 Super Bowl specials. The average viewership is 1.4m.

On his emotional return to air, Jimmy said: ‘It was never my intention to make light of the murder of a young man. I don’t think there was anything funny about it.’

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