“I think this is my final contract. I hate to even say it, because everyone’s laughing at me now — each time I think that, and then it turns out to be not the case. I still have a little more than two years left on my contract, and that seems pretty good. That seems like enough,” Kimmel told the Los Angeles Times in an interview released Tuesday.
Kimmel, who has hosted his ABC program since 2003, explained that he is taking a-lot of time to prep for hosting the Oscars in 2024. He also revealed that he has been considering retirement.
“It’s hard to yearn for it when you’re doing it,” the Jimmy Kimmel Live host told the outlet. “Wednesday night, I was very tired and I had all these scripts to go through — I had to revise and rewrite all these pitch ideas for the Oscars — and I was literally nodding off onto my computer.
“In those moments, I think, ‘I cannot wait until my contract is over.’ But then, I take the summer off or I go on strike, and you start going, ‘Yeah, I miss the fun stuff,’” he continued.
When asked what he would do next if he does decide to walk away after his contract expires, the left-wing comedian admitted that he did not know. “It might not be anything that anyone other than me is aware of,” he told the outlet, adding that he has a-lot of hobbies to focus on.
“I know that when I die, if I’m fortunate enough to die on my own terms in my own bed, I’m going to think, ‘Oh, I was never able to get to this, and I was never able to get to that.’ I just know it about myself,” Kimmel said.
Kimmel, 56, previously discussed the possibility of retirement prior to the 2023 Writers Guild Strike. “As you know, I was very intent on retiring right around the time where the strike started,” Kimmel told fellow late-night talk show hosts on the Strike Force Five podcast back in August. The former Man Show host ultimately decided against the idea at the time, explaining that the strike made him value his job.
Kimmel’s current contract began in 2022, when he re-upped with ABC for three years.
