Jimmy Kimmel is pioneering a new kind of FYC Emmy campaign—by rooting for the competition.
Kimmel has taken out a billboard in Los Angeles to throw his support behind fellow Emmy nominee Stephen Colbert in a very public way.
Jimmy Kimmel Randy Holmes/Disney via Getty Images
ABC’s Jimmy Kimmel Live! is nominated alongside Colbert’s The Late Show for Outstanding Talk Series at the 77th Primetime Emmy Awards, which will take place in L.A. on Sept. 14. Despite being nominated in the top late-night category for nine consecutive years, Colbert has never taken home the award. As the upcoming ceremony could be its last chance to win, Kimmel is doing what he can to right that wrong.
“I’m voting for Stephen,” reads the West Hollywood billboard, which was spotted by Variety.
Kimmel has had Colbert’s back from the moment the comedian announced that CBS was canceling The Late Show following its final episodes next May—a decision executives said was strictly financial, but which some chalked up to political pressure from President Donald Trump.
Paramount, the parent company of CBS, had recently settled a lawsuit from the president for $16 million. Meanwhile, Paramount’s sale to Skydance Media—which required FCC approval—was pending at the time, but confirmed the day after Colbert confirmed that The Late Show was being axed.
“Love you Stephen,” Kimmel wrote on Instagram in response to Colbert breaking the news to his audience last month. “F— you and all your Sheldons CBS.”
Fellow late night host Jon Stewart of The Daily Show—the other Emmy nominee for Outstanding Talk Series, and a longtime collaborator of Colbert’s—also criticized Paramount for trying to “never again be on the boy king’s radar.”
Trump has since predicted that Kimmel’s show, as well as Jimmy Fallon’s The Tonight Show on NBC, will be “next” to go. The avid television watcher has attacked them on social media for having “absolutely NO TALENT” and “destroying what used to be GREAT Television.”
Kimmel responded in a monologue later that night with a dig at the president’s ties to sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
“I’m hearing you’re next. Or maybe it’s just another wonderful secret,” he said, referring to a line Trump reportedly wrote in a suggestive birthday message to Epstein.