Why Jimmy Kimmel Turned Down Hosting the 2025 Oscars
Jimmy Kimmel is detailing why he won’t be hosting the 2025 Oscars.
The “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” talk-show host said during the “Politickin'” podcast, hosted by Gavin Newsom, Marshawn Lynch, and sports agent Doug Hendrickson, that pulling double duty with “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” and the Academy Awards is “distracting” for his staff. In turn, “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” actually “suffers a little bit,” according to Kimmel.
More from IndieWire
“I just decided I didn’t want to deal with that this year,” Kimmel said of turning down hosting the 2025 Academy Awards. “It was just too much last year. You wind up pushing everything off ’til after the Oscars, and then you have to do everything you promised to do after the Oscars, after the Oscars.”
Kimmel has hosted the Oscars telecast four times, including the last two consecutive years.
“I did two years [2017 and 2018], it went well. I did another two years [2023 and 2024], it went well,” Kimmel said. “I figured I’d take a little break.”
Kimmel pointed out how his “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” writers have to juggle both the Oscars and the nightly talk show during awards season, something that Kimmel said “distracts them” despite being “fun to do.”
“I’m not good at balancing. I’m really not. It’s not one of my strengths,” Kimmel said. “I’m all in when it comes to something like the Oscars. I think about it in the morning and at night, and when I have ideas I want to work on them, and then my nightly show seems like a nuisance. We have all our writers from the show working on the Oscars, so it distracts them. It’s fun to do, and it feels good when it went well, but, for me, just was too much, to do it three years in a row.”
As for other potential Oscar hosts — John Mulaney was rumored to be offered the gig after Kimmel said no, according to a Puck report — Kimmel acknowledged that emceeing the Academy Awards has the reputation of being a “thankless job” that deters other comedians.
“It takes a lot of time, and a lot of the people who you think, ‘That person would be great,’ they know they’d be great, they just don’t want to do it,” Kimmel said. “When you think somebody’s going to be great, the only thing they can do is prove you wrong when they host the Oscars. They say it’s a thankless job. I wouldn’t necessarily describe it like that, because when it goes well, it isn’t, but it’s a tough spot to be in.”
Mulaney previosuly told IndieWire in June 2024 that he prefers to host smaller-scale awards shows rather than one like the Oscars, a sentiment that seems to be shared by other potential hosts.
“I hosted the Governors Awards, and I really had fun doing that,” Mulaney said. “I will say: I’m open to whatever. I personally have an affinity for [something lower key]. It’s so fun to try to do your absolute best at not the biggest award show, like the Spirit Awards or Governors Awards. They’re just a little more relaxed and casual. Going in and trying to have a shitload of fun is a great feeling.”
Best of IndieWire
Sign up for Indiewire's Newsletter. For the latest news, follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.
Solve the daily Crossword
