The comedian, 57, has fronted <\/a>Jimmy Kimmel Live! <\/a>since 2003. He has since become one of late-night television\u2019s trusty stalwarts, recently coming back from a week-long suspension following his comments on the death of conservative activist Charlie Kirk<\/a>.<\/p>\n However, that wasn\u2019t always the case. Sitting down Wednesday for Ted Danson\u2019s Where Everybody Knows Your Name podcast<\/a>, Kimmel confessed that when he first landed the gig, he felt lost. <\/p>\n \u201cI didn\u2019t know what I was doing,\u201d he said. \u201cAnd I would pray that they canceled the show sometimes.\u201d<\/p>\n Kimmel added: \u201cI didn\u2019t want to quit because I didn\u2019t want to disappoint all the many people who worked for me, but I couldn\u2019t. I was just \u2014 I couldn\u2019t do it anymore.\u201d<\/p>\n open image in gallery<\/p>\n Jimmy Kimmel said he used to ‘pray’ for ABC to cancel his late-night talk show (Getty Images for UCLA Jonsson Ca)<\/p>\n Opening up about the specific struggles he faced, the Emmy-winning host said that early on, it was difficult for him to find guests. \u201cIt was just, like, we didn\u2019t have guests many times,\u201d he recalled. <\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019d go on the air live at midnight, at 12:05. There were times it was 5:30 in the afternoon and we didn\u2019t have guests for that night\u2019s show, and I would have to just pick up the phone and call my friends,\u201d he revealed. \u201cThat\u2019s not how you go into a show. You can\u2019t operate that way.\u201d<\/p>\n Kimmel shared that he often called on his close friends and then-girlfriend Sarah Silverman to appear on the show. \u201cI asked her to come on a lot and I love her,\u201d he noted, adding that his roster of friends included Adam Carolla, David Alan Grier, Anthony Anderson and Kathy Griffin.<\/p>\n \u201cGod bless them, because I needed them,\u201d he said. \u201cAnd they were always ready at a moment\u2019s notice to come on.\u201d<\/p>\n Things eventually worked out. \u201cIt stabilized and we figured out how to do it,\u201d he said, remembering how he started using \u201crunning bits\u201d and other elements to help \u201ckeep [him] afloat.\u201d<\/p>\n Kimmel\u2019s surprising admission comes shortly after his show was reinstated by ABC<\/a> following a brief suspension. <\/p>\n open image in gallery<\/p>\n Jimmy Kimmel was briefly suspended in September due to comments he made about the assassination of right-wing activist Charlie Kirk (Jimmy Kimmel Live!\/ YouTube)<\/p>\n Last month, the network made the controversial decision to pull Jimmy Kimmel Live! off the air indefinitely due to Kimmel\u2019s comments about the fatal shooting of Kirk.<\/a><\/p>\n His September suspension caused a wave of outcry from celebrities<\/a>, politicians and others who believed pulling the show was a violation of free speech protections. Some went as far as to boycott Hulu and Disney+, streaming services of Disney, which is the parent company of ABC.<\/p>\n According to recent data from subscription analytics firm Antenna, the rate of Hulu subscription cancellations <\/a>spiked to 10 percent in September, up from 5 percent in August. Similarly, the rate of Disney subscription cancellations rose to 8 percent from 4 percent.<\/p>\n Within a week of his suspension, Disney announced Jimmy Kimmel Live! would be returning <\/a>after \u201chaving thoughtful conversations with Jimmy.\u201d The entertainment company explained it decided to suspend the show \u201cto avoid further inflaming a tense situation at an emotional moment for our country.\u201d<\/p>\n Kimmel\u2019s first night back skyrocketed in ratings.<\/a> The episode brought in a whopping 6.3 million views on television, according to data from audience measurement firm Nielsen. That\u2019s triple his normal TV viewership, despite an estimated 23 percent of households not being able to watch on their local ABC stations due to a boycott of Kimmel\u2019s show by station owners Nexstar and Sinclair <\/a>that has since ended.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Your support helps us to tell the story From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":235762,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[64,63,134,427],"class_list":{"0":"post-235761","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tv","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-entertainment","11":"tag-tv"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/235761","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=235761"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/235761\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/235762"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=235761"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=235761"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=235761"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"Jimmy](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/Jimmy-Kimmel.jpeg\")
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