Jimmy Kimmel
Jimmy Kimmel is an American TV host and comedian best known for hosting Jimmy Kimmel Live! on ABC, a late-night show he has led since 2003. Born James Christian Kimmel on November 13, 1967, in New York City, he grew up in Brooklyn and later Las Vegas. He attended the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, for a year and Arizona State University but did not graduate; UNLV later gave him an honorary degree in 2013. Kimmel started in radio and then moved to television, co-hosting The Man Show with Adam Carolla and winning an Emmy for Win Ben Stein’s Money. He also produced and created Crank Yankers and The Andy Milonakis Show.
In 2003 he left The Man Show to host Jimmy Kimmel Live!, which made him one of the longest-running late-night hosts in the United States. He has hosted the Primetime Emmy Awards (2012, 2016, 2020) and the Academy Awards (2017, 2018, 2023, 2024). He started his own production company, Kimmelot, and hosted a celebrity edition of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire in 2020. He published The Serious Goose, a children’s book, in 2019. In 2020 he helped launch Strike Force Five, a podcast with other late-night hosts to support writers during the writers’ strike.
Kimmel’s personal life includes a marriage to Gina Maddy from 1988 to 2002, with two children. He began dating Molly McNearney in 2009, marrying her in 2013; they have two children, including a son born with a serious congenital heart condition who needed early surgery. The family lives in California. He is a practicing Catholic, has spoken about narcolepsy, and earned Italian citizenship in 2025.
Kimmel has faced several controversies, including remarks during the 2004 NBA Finals, a 2013 segment about the U.S. government shutdown that drew protests and apologies, and past material involving blackface and other remarks for which he apologized in 2020. In 2025 a monologue about Charlie Kirk led ABC to suspend Jimmy Kimmel Live! for a week, though the show later returned. Despite ups and downs, Kimmel remains a central figure in American late-night television.
This page was last edited on 3 February 2026, at 06:43 (CET).