Late night talk show host Jimmy Kimmel has suffered plenty of tragedy in his 56 years, despite his incredible rise to fame.
Now the star is set to present the 2024 Oscars, which will hopefully run a little more smoothly than Chris Rock’s tenure after the Will Smith slap. Kimmel’s got plenty of experience under his belt, having presented the Emmy Awards in 2012, 2016 and 2020.
Life hasn’t always been easy for Kimmel. From his start as a contributor for Fox NFL Sunday to launching his ABC show Jimmy Kimmel Live back in 2003, he was unfortunately fired from a number of positions before anything stuck.
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While working on the radio in Phoenix, Arizona, the entire workforce got laid off. Jimmy took a job in Seattle doing the same, but was fired after less than 12 months in the job – and the same thing happened in Tampa, Florida and Tucson, Arizona.
(Image: ABC via Getty Images)
He confessed on Live with Kelly and Mark of the Seattle job: “I was fired from the radio station I think 10 months after I started. There were good reasons for my termination. I would tape my boss in our meetings and then play them back on the air the next day.
“I would call his wife to find things out about his life and then repeat them on the air. I would cut his head and our general manager’s head out of pictures and put them on naked bodies and put them on the cover of the company newsletter…”
Needless to say, Kimmel’s career kicked off after that – but his life has had its ups and downs.
Marriage breakdown
(Image: ABC via Getty Images)
Kimmel actually tied the knot with his first ever girlfriend, Gina Maddy. The pair met at Arizona State University, and they married when Jimmy was 20.
He admitted to HuffPost: “We were both very young. My mom was 19 when she got married, so it didn’t seem unusual to me. It seemed unusual to all my friends, but not to me.” They welcomed two children together – daughter Katie and son Kevin. But in 2002, Gina filed for divorce.
She reportedly grew tired of how much of a “workaholic” Jimmy was, and sick of moving from place to place for his radio jobs. Thankfully, in 2013 he settled down with second wife Molly McNearney, after being in a long-term relationship with Sarah Silverman from 2002 until 2009.
Tragic diagnosis
(Image: Getty Images)
In 2017, Jimmy welcomed his second child Billy with his comedy writer wife Molly. Just three hours after his birth, a heart murmur was discovered in the newborn baby and his skin began to turn purple. Tests revealed the tot didn’t have enough oxygen in his lungs, and it was discovered that Billy had a blocked pulmonary valve and a hole in the interior wall of his heart.
When Billy was just three days old he went through open heart surgery to help treat the issues, with Jimmy confessing: “It was the longest three hours of my life.” Seven months later, he had another surgery – and is now thought to be doing well.
In 2022, Kimmel said he “still needs one open-heart surgery”, but that Billy is “doing great”. He admitted: “I tried to explain the heart surgery to him because he has a bit of scar down the centre of his chest, and he has almost no interest.”
Kimmel has since been a devoted fundraiser for the Children’s Hospital Los Angeles, who helped treat his young son. He praised on Billy’s fifth birthday: “Happy 5th birthday to our little nut. We are eternally grateful to the brilliant doctors and nurses at @ChildrensLA & @CedarsSinai for saving Billy’s life and to those of you whose donations, prayers and positive thoughts meant everything.”
Health battle
(Image: AFP via Getty Images)
It’s not just his son who suffers from a rare disease – Kimmel himself was diagnosed with narcolepsy, a condition he opened up about in 2003 to Esquire. He admitted: “I would doze off in meetings, watching TV, even driving. You know how when you’re regular tired, your whole body is tired? With narcolepsy, just the inside of your head is tired. It’s like somebody’s gently sitting on your brain. You have almost no focus. All you’re thinking about is not falling asleep.”
He admitted to falling asleep during Win Ben Stein’s Money, which he was presenting. He went on: “I would sit on the safe over to the side and just sort of doze off. But that was probably a combination of the narcolepsy and Ben’s voice.
“Another time I was on the freeway in bumper-to-bumper traffic. My head was diving, then jerking back up. All of a sudden, this loud voice over a megaphone says, ‘Are you awake enough to drive that vehicle?’ And I practically jumped out of my skin. It was the police, one lane over.”
Kimmel started on medication to help treat the condition, which he says is “pretty mild” in his case.
Talk show disasters
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Kimmel’s talk show didn’t turn into a success overnight, and it’s been mired in controversy over the years. The live format led to numerous mistakes, and the show had its alcohol license revoked after one woman reportedly drank too much from the in-house bar and “vomited on her chair” near to a network exec.
He admitted to a SXSW panel in 2015: “I was burnt out, exhausted, terrified. I wanted them to cancel it, so I didn’t have to quit.” One 2013 segment sparked protests when Kimmel asked a bunch of children how the US government should settle its debts to China.
One child replied: “Kill everyone in China.” Jimmy urged him to elaborate on that idea, which led to a complaint from Asian-American advocacy group 80-20. ABC was forced to apologise and vow to never air the segment again, while calls for Kimmel to be fired fell on deaf ears.
He said at the time: “If I upset you, I’m very very sorry. I did not mean to upset you. I feel like we made a mistake putting it on the air.”
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Source: Celebrities - dailystar.co.uk
