Jimmy Kimmel hints he’s exiting late night show: ‘I think this is my final contract’
The end could be near for Jimmy Kimmel and his eponymous late-night chat show.
The “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” host, 56, teased a possible finale in a new interview with the Los Angeles Times, saying that the time to exit his ABC show could be sometime soon.
The talk series first debuted in January 2003, with George Clooney as his first guest ever.
“I’m as surprised as anyone [that I] could be in this position — even to have a really good job is a surprise to me,” the comedian joked to the publication.
“It’s hard to yearn for it when you’re doing it,” Kimmel added. “Wednesday night, I was very tired and I had all these scripts to go through — I had to revise and rewrite all these pitch ideas for the Oscars — and I was literally nodding off onto my computer.”
He added: “I think this is my final contract.”
The funnyman is hosting the 2024 Oscars on March 10, and it is his fourth time as the master of ceremonies of the illustrious awards show.
“In those moments, I think, ‘I cannot wait until my contract is over,’ ” he went on. “But then, I take the summer off or I go on strike, and you start going, ‘Yeah, I miss the fun stuff.’ “
The Emmy Awards host still has over two years left in his contract. “That seems pretty good. That seems like enough,” he said.
But while Kimmel isn’t exactly sure what he will do after “Live!” is off the air, he will still find ways to keep his mind busy.
“I have a lot of hobbies — I love to cook, I love to draw, I imagine myself learning to do sculptures,” Kimmel quipped. “I know that when I die, if I’m fortunate enough to die on my own terms in my own bed, I’m going to think, ‘Oh, I was never able to get to this, and I was never able to get to that.’ I just know it about myself.”
“I love being involved in other people’s projects. I never had an urge to be the center of attention, and I still don’t. It’s not in my DNA.”
Stand-up comedy, however, is not in the cards for the Brooklyn native. “I am uncomfortable with it,” he confessed. “I don’t like my birthday. I love being a team player.”
The “Andy Milonakis Show” producer previously got candid about the legacy that will be left behind by his last two decades on the air.
In a profile for Variety published last year, Kimmel admitted that he “never watched the first” episode of his show, adding that 20 years “feels like it went by in the blink of an eye.”
