ABC
The late-night host made the reveal on Spotify’s Strike Force Five podcast.
Jimmy Kimmel claims he was ready to quit his spurs as a late-night ABC talk show host earlier this year – but the WGA writers’ strike changed his mind.
Kimmel made the reveal on the first episode of Spotify’s Strike Force Five podcast, which went live Wednesday (Aug. 30) and a Zoom roundtable discussion between Kimmel, Stephen Colbert, Jimmy Fallon, Seth Meyers and John Oliver included.
“I wanted to retire right about the time the strike started,” Kimmel said in the premiere episode. “And now I realize: Oh yes, it’s kind of nice to work.”
Meyers chimed in, “Kimmel, come on, you’re the late night Tom Brady … you pretended to be retiring.” But Kimmel insisted he was serious about the retirement: “Me was serious, I was very, very serious.” Kimmel also said he usually takes time off in the summer — but in recent years he’s been paid to do it.
However, in September 2022, ABC announced a three-year extension to Kimmel’s contract, which would have complicated any Kimmel decision to retire.
During the WGA strike, Colbert said people who saw him in public asked him if he was “enjoying the vacation”: “I usually say, ‘This is like a vacation, like a colonoscopy like a nap is.’ ”
The unlikely alliance brings together the five late-night hosts who normally compete for ratings and awards to pass on to their respective teams – who are out of work due to the WGA strike, now in its 121st day. Proceeds from “Strike Force Five” go to the unemployed staff of each of their shows (“The Late Show With Stephen Colbert”, “The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon”, “Jimmy Kimmel Live”, “Late Night) With Seth Meyers” and “Last Week Tonight With John Oliver”).
In a post on X (aka Twitter), Kimmel said the group will produce “Strike Force Five” episodes “for the remainder of the strike.” In any case, according to Spotify there should be at least 12 episodes.
Whenever someone says the podcast name in the podcast, a thunderclap sound effect will play.
The last time there was a writers’ strike in 2007-08, “there wasn’t a lot of communication between the late-night hosts, and as a result, there was a lot of nonsense,” Kimmel said on the episode. “So Stephen [Colbert] suggested that we get together and discuss our problems and everything we are dealing with.”
Other tidbits from the premiere episode: Kimmel took Fallon on a fishing trip earlier in the summer (“I fish and I’ve never been invited,” complained Colbert); Fallon said his mother spent a week as a trainee nun in a convent; Kimmel said Ben Affleck and Matt Damon offered to pay him a week’s wages each for his employees during the strike (which Kimmel declined: “I felt like it wasn’t their responsibility”); and Colbert said one of his favorite guests of all time was Robert De Niro, who is notoriously uncommunicative: “We just sat there in silence for a minute … and the audience loved it.”
You can listen to “Strike Force Five” on Spotify (at this link) and all other major podcast platforms (although in the show’s teaser trailer, Oliver urged listeners to tune in “Spotify, you fucks!”).
After the WGA strike began in May, the five hosts began meeting via Zoom video conferences to discuss the impact of the walkout – and subsequently agreed to turn the comedic conclave into a podcast.