Late-night host Jimmy Kimmel hit back at people he said were telling him how to do his job as a comedian on Wednesday, arguing, “My job is whatever I decide my job is.”
The late-night comedian told “IMO” hosts, former first lady Michelle Obama and Craig Robinson that he always believed his job to be one where he talks about what’s going on in people’s lives, on a local and national level.
“These are things that I take very seriously,” he said. “And, of course, I like to, I love telling jokes, I love being funny, I love when the audience laughs. There’s nothing that’s more exciting to me than that. But well-rounded human beings don’t behave that way.”
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“To say that, well, your job is this, it makes me — I bristle at that because, first of all, don’t tell me what my job is,” Kimmel continued. “I don’t tell you what your job is. My job is whatever I decide my job is or whatever my employer allows me to do. That’s what my job is.”
“And comedians have been doing this for a long time,” he added. “And from my generation, George Carlin, Richard Pryor, it just shows a great deal of ignorance when it comes to comedy to say, well, Johnny Carson didn’t do this. Well, first of all, we’re living in a different time.”
The late-night host said it would be “embarrassing” and “shameful” to not talk about the state of the world on his comedy show.
Obama also praised Kimmel for speaking out on politics on his show.
“To me, it just seems obvious and unavoidable, and I don’t see that. I just can’t imagine on those nights talking about anything other than what we are talking about,” he said.
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Kimmel told Obama and Robinson that he was OK with people who believed differently from him, but explained that he’s always been a liberal.
“I’ve never voted for a Republican in my life,” he said.
“I don’t mind if people think differently,” Kimmel said. “I have some very close friends who think very differently, and I’m OK with that. I understand that people have different life experiences and believe things. I know I personally believed certain things to be true for a long time in my life and realized that they weren’t. And just, you have to allow for that.”
Kimmel went on to say he was grateful to podcasters who are now expressing they had second thoughts about President Donald Trump.
“I posted something on Instagram about some of these primarily podcasters who now are having second thoughts about who they endorsed for president,” he said. “And I’m grateful to them for being honest and admitting that they were mistaken.”
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Kimmel’s wife and show writer Molly McNearney said she lost relationships with people in her family who supported Trump in the 2024 election.
Kimmel is a staunch, everyday critic of the president.
He has regularly attended anti-Trump and anti-ICE protests over the course of the president’s second term.
