Jimmy Kimmel's days of struggling to book celebrity guests are long over. Now one of the signature segments on Jimmy Kimmel Live! is "Mean Tweets," in which celebrities read outrageous insults that have been hurled at them on Twitter.
Years before Kimmel became a late night host on ABC he started out working at small-market radio stations, eventually landing in Los Angeles. Longtime fans of the Kevin and Bean show on KROQ will remember him as "Jimmy the Sports Guy." His TV career started in 1997 as co-host of the game show Win Ben Stein's Money on Comedy Central.
Kimmel recently sat down with Michael Schneider, host of KCRW's podcast The Spin-Off, and said that long before he got started in radio, he was obsessed with late night, and David Letterman in particular. It was surreal for Kimmel, decades later, to technically become Letterman's competitor, but Kimmel said it never really felt that way because Letterman was "like a mountain" to him.
Kimmel takes us through the struggle of his early days with the show, to the current late night landscape where he's one of the longest serving hosts currently on the air.
Over the years, Kimmel has taken on many other hosting jobs, including the American Music Awards, the ESPY Awards and the White House Correspondents Dinner. He also hosted the Emmys in 2012. That's a job he's taking on once again this year, which will air on his home network, ABC, on September 18.
In addition to hosting, he's also a nominee. Kimmel's show is in contention for Outstanding Variety Talk Series. The show has been nominated for the past four years as well, but has yet to win. Kimmel said he doesn't expect that trend to change this year, but you never know...now that neither Jon Stewart or Stephen Colbert are nominated for the first time in more than a decade, the field is wide open.