Jimmy Kimmel says he’s weighing whether to retire from his ABC late-night show but is afraid he will come to regret it, while his wife wants him to carry on because his work is “incredibly important right now”. Asked if he feared looking back after ending Jimmy Kimmel Live! and wondering why he stopped, he told Dax Shepard on the Armchair Expert podcast: “I do. I know people who’ve been in that situation.
People make a big show of like, ‘I am done and I am tired doing this’, and then they make a lesser comeback trying to do the same thing. And that’s always a bummer. And I always look at that and go, ‘Oh, is that going to be me?’” Kimmel, 58, has hosted Jimmy Kimmel Live! since 2003, making him the longest-tenured host of the current crop of American late-night TV shows.
Kimmel agreed a one-year extension with Disney, which owns ABC, in December 2025, about three months after the network suspended his show over his comments about the murder of conservative activist Charlie Kirk. The suspension was reversed six days later, with Disney saying that it had held “thoughtful conversations” with Kimmel. Kimmel imagined how his younger self would react to the idea of giving up a job he was once thrilled to be in.
I also feel like Jimmy has like a fly rod in one hand and like a torch in the other right now. It is like he deserves to go out there and just be on the river and relax, but I also want him to keep fighting,” she told Shepard. New subscribers only. £9.99/mo. after free trial.
Plan auto-renews until cancelled. This revenue helps to fund journalism across The Independent. McNearney said that she felt a “sense of desire to not quit” because she believed Kimmel’s work was “incredibly important right now”.
However, Kimmel was certain that ending his show would not mean stopping work altogether. So, it’s just a different scenario.” In June, Kimmel told Vulture that things were “tumultuous” after his contract extension. The uncertainty around late-night television has been heightened by the cancellation of Stephen Colbert’s The Late Show, which ended its run on 21 May after 11 years.
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