March 12, 2024
Jimmy Kimmel’s wife Molly McNearney recently shared what went behind his Donald Trump joke at the Oscars on Sunday night.
In an interview with Kelly Ripo and Mark Conseuelos, the four-time Oscars host shared that the producers told him that he had some time to kill towards the end of the ceremony which made him bring up the former president's comments about his hosting skills on Truth Social.
In the post, the 77-year-old politician called Jimmy’s monologue "less than average" and “boring," adding that he was "trying too hard."
"I'm surprised you're still [up] — isn’t it past your jail time?" Jimmy said in response that made the audience erupt into a huge laughter.
His wife-cum-executive producer now tells Variety that she was not on-board with his “risky” joke.
“I will tell you, I’m really not proud of this, but I tried to talk Jimmy out of reading that. I feel like my instincts are usually right, but I was totally off on that,” she revealed.
Explaining that she wasn't in favor of giving Donald any airtime, Molly added, "I just wanted to make sure it ended well, and I didn’t want it to end on a sour note. He had a glimmer in his eye, and he said, ‘I got this.’ He really did. This is where he shines.”