• Jimmy Kimmel, 58, devoted his Wednesday monologue on Jimmy Kimmel Live! to roasting Spencer Pratt’s bid for Los Angeles mayor ahead of the June 2 primary
• Kimmel called Pratt "another narcissist looking for attention" and compared his political rise directly to Donald Trump’s 2015 presidential run: "It’s exactly what Donald Trump did"
• A new detail from Kimmel’s monologue: Pratt has been staying at the Hotel Bel-Air at $1,500 a night while running a campaign video claiming he lives in a trailer on his burned-out Pacific Palisades lot
• Pratt lost his home in the 2025 California wildfires and entered the race against incumbent Mayor Karen Bass; polls show him at 22% support
• Pratt responded on X after the monologue aired: "When people criticize me for not having experience, I’m a lifelong Angeleno who’s seen my home city waste away under poor leadership. THAT is my experience."

Jimmy Kimmel looked out at Los Angeles on Wednesday night and saw something he wanted to talk about for a long time.

The late-night host devoted a large chunk of his opening monologue on Jimmy Kimmel Live! to Spencer Pratt’s campaign for L.A. mayor — and didn’t hold back. Pratt, 42, entered the race against incumbent Mayor Karen Bass in the aftermath of the 2025 California wildfires, after he and wife Heidi Montag lost their Pacific Palisades home in the disaster. With the June 2 primary now less than a week away, Kimmel clearly felt the moment required comment.

“This city, let’s be honest, this city is a mess,” Kimmel told his audience. “That is something that became especially obvious during the fires. But the people running the city — when you say ‘This city is a mess,’ they go, ‘No, actually it isn’t and we’re doing a lot.’ And then we look around and say, ‘I’m not seeing it.'”

From there, Kimmel walked through exactly how he thinks Pratt got here. A reality star loses his house. People start agreeing with him for the first time. He enjoys the attention. He starts to think maybe he should be mayor.

“Since he’s a moderately famous person, he gets attention. He’s on the news. He’s on social media. For the first time in his life, people are agreeing with what he has to say,” per Us Weekly. “He’s angry about the same problems a lot of people here are angry about. Does he have solutions to those problems? No. But at least he’s acknowledging that they are problems.”

Polls currently put Pratt at 22% support. Kimmel noted that those same supporters have been giving him campaign money — some of which Pratt immediately spent on a $1,500-a-night room at the Hotel Bel-Air. That, while Pratt runs campaign videos claiming he lives in a trailer on his burned-out lot. “Which he is not,” Kimmel said flatly.

The Trump Comparison

The Trump parallel was the centerpiece of Kimmel’s argument. “You think this guy wants to sit through city council meetings all day talking about zoning? No, he wants to be a star again. And guess what? It’s working. He’s everywhere. People show up to see him speak. He’s doing interviews. He’s making deals for a new reality show. It’s exactly what Donald Trump did,” per Rolling Stone.

Kimmel’s read on Trump’s 2015 campaign: “Donald Trump ran for president because his TV show was going to get canceled and he wanted to be relevant again. Now, the difference between Donald Trump and this guy is Donald Trump actually had a job before he was on a reality show. He wasn’t good at the job. He got all the money for it from his dad. The only thing he was good at was promoting himself, and it turned out that was enough. And as a result, we are now going to have to spend the next three decades digging out of this giant hole he put us in. But this hole now has given birth to Spencer Pratt, who is running for mayor. Another narcissist looking for attention.”

Kimmel also brought up Pratt and Montag’s well-documented history of spending — the couple previously admitted to blowing through $10 million on extravagant purchases, including a crystal collection Pratt estimated at $1 million. Pratt’s current side business: selling healing crystals on a site called prattdaddy.com. “That alone should be disqualifying,” Kimmel said.

“The mayor of L.A. is in charge of a $14 billion annual budget. Spencer Pratt is not the person who should be in charge of [it],” he added. “That’s the guy 22% of you want to be mayor of Los Angeles when the Olympics come to town. You gotta be kidding me with this?”

Pratt pushed back on X shortly after the episode aired: “When people criticize me for not having experience, I’m a lifelong Angeleno who’s seen my home city waste away under poor leadership. THAT is my experience. Just like you. Vote for LA. Vote today.”

Kimmel closed by telling viewers that even if they don’t want to vote for Bass, “you better find somebody else to vote for and preferably someone who isn’t wasting our time and money to get himself back on television.”

The post Jimmy Kimmel Calls Spencer Pratt ‘Another Narcissist Looking for Attention’ Over L.A. Mayor Run appeared first on Cream.

• Adam Carolla received his star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame on Wednesday — his 62nd birthday — with Jimmy Kimmel and Dr. Drew Pinsky as presenters
• Kimmel got visibly emotional and called Carolla his “life partner,” adding: “If that sounds gay to you, it was and it is”
• The two met in 1994 when Carolla, then a boxing instructor, called into KROQ’s Kevin and Bean show — Kimmel put him on air immediately
• They co-created and starred in Comedy Central’s The Man Show (1999–2003) and Crank Yankers, and co-hosted Loveline with Dr. Drew
• Carolla used his speech to take shots at Chelsea Handler and tease Kimmel — the two have diverged politically but have clearly kept their friendship intact

Adam Carolla got his star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame on Wednesday — his 62nd birthday — and Jimmy Kimmel showed up and cried.

Kimmel, who was one of two presenters alongside Dr. Drew Pinsky, delivered a speech that went places. He called Carolla his “life partner” from the podium at the ceremony, then addressed the obvious reaction head-on: “If that sounds gay to you, it was and it is.” The crowd laughed. Kimmel also teared up, visibly emotional while talking about how proud he was of his longtime collaborator.

The two go back to 1994. Kimmel was working on Kevin and Bean, the morning show on Los Angeles radio station KROQ, when Carolla — then making his living as a boxing instructor and construction worker — called in. He’d been brought on to train Kimmel for a boxing match. The first time Carolla was put on air, Kimmel said, the reaction was immediate. Carolla never really left after that.

What followed was one of the more unlikely run of collaborations in early-2000s comedy. Carolla and Kimmel, with partner Daniel Kellison, co-created and starred in Comedy Central’s The Man Show, which ran from 1999 to 2003 and became a cult touchstone of a particular era of guy humor. They also co-created Crank Yankers, the puppet-based prank call show. Carolla had already been co-hosting Loveline on radio and MTV with Dr. Drew Pinsky — which is why Pinsky was also on stage Wednesday.

Carolla, 62, has spent the years since building what became one of the most-downloaded podcasts in the country. He arrived at the Walk of Fame as a genuine media institution — starting from a background as a Southern California construction worker and KROQ fixture known as “Mr. Birchum,” a gruff shop teacher character he played on air.

His own speech had a different energy than Kimmel’s. Carolla reportedly took shots at Chelsea Handler during his remarks and got in some gentle digs at Kimmel — the two have grown politically apart over the years, something TMZ noted, with Carolla having distanced himself from the progressive positions Kimmel has become associated with. But none of that was what the day was about, and neither of them made it so. Kimmel showed up, gave the speech, and cried. That was the story.

The post Jimmy Kimmel Called Adam Carolla His ‘Life Partner’ at the Walk of Fame — and Cried appeared first on Cream.

• Trey Parker and Matt Stone visited Jimmy Kimmel Live! and revealed the prop behind South Park’s viral Trump moment
• The “deepfake AI rig” turned out to be a beige finger puppet with cartoon eyes drawn on it
• Kimmel told the duo he thought they were “being generous” with the prop’s size
• Parker and Stone also discussed turning JD Vance into Tattoo from Fantasy Island for Season 29
• The visit comes ahead of South Park‘s 29th season premiere

Trey Parker and Matt Stone promised Jimmy Kimmel a peek at their “deepfake AI rig” — and delivered one of the most gloriously low-tech reveals in late-night history.

The South Park creators stopped by Jimmy Kimmel Live! Monday night to talk about 28 seasons of the Comedy Central institution, and things got memorable fast. Parker teased that during their latest season, the show had pulled off a deepfake of the president that “kinda got famous” — then reached into his pocket to demonstrate exactly how they did it.

“We actually brought our deepfake AI rig to show you how we did Donald Trump’s wiener on the show,” Parker said, before producing a small beige finger puppet, complete with hand-drawn cartoon eyes in classic South Park style.

“For the show, we just put it on like this. And there’s his little guy. Can you believe we did that?” Parker said, wiggling the puppet at the audience.

Kimmel, who slipped it onto his own pinky later in the segment and greeted it with “Hello, little fella — why are you making so much trouble?” — had already weighed in on the prop’s proportions. “I think you’re being generous, I have to say,” he told Parker.

https://youtube.com/watch?v=y2IhrZH4mL8%3Frel%3D0%26enablejsapi%3D1

“If he doesn’t burn down the Smithsonian, I hope that that winds up in the Smithsonian one day,” Kimmel added — a line that landed a little differently given Kimmel’s own recent history with the Trump camp. The host has been in the crosshairs more than once lately, from weeks off the air after MAGA circles distorted a joke about the reaction to Charlie Kirk’s killing, to the more recent uproar when Trump and Melania publicly called for his firing after misreading a quip about the president dozing off in meetings.

The finger puppet made its debut last summer in one of South Park‘s most talked-about episodes, which ends with the residents of South Park settling a lawsuit with the president and agreeing to film pro-Trump PSAs. The final scene features a realistic deepfake of Trump tearing his clothes off in the desert, collapsing, and revealing the little finger puppet. It was exactly as chaotic as it sounds.

JD Vance as Tattoo, and 29 Seasons In

The finger puppet wasn’t the only thing Kimmel wanted to dig into. He also pressed Parker and Stone on their decision to reimagine Vice President JD Vance as Tattoo — the bewildered little character played by the late Hervé Villechaize on Fantasy Island — which has become one of the season’s running gags.

Parker said it started with Tattoo being one of the first impressions he ever did. “When I was like nine years old,” he said. The joke grew from a bit about Mar-a-Lago feeling like Fantasy Island, and Vance just… fit. “It was just gonna be a one-off joke,” Parker explained. “We were like, ‘Oh, we’re just gonna have him be Tattoo, and it’s gonna be one shot.’ And we all just loved it so much, and we loved him as a little character.”

The two also touched on 28 seasons at Comedy Central, their beloved Denver restaurant Casa Bonita, a 15th anniversary special for The Book of Mormon with original Broadway cast members, and the fact that the internet has apparently decided they’re the richest comedians in the world. (They did not confirm or deny.)

Season 29 of South Park is on the way — and if Monday night’s appearance is any indication, the finger puppet is just getting started.

The post South Park Creators Bring Trump’s ‘Little Guy’ to Kimmel appeared first on Cream.

• Jimmy Kimmel texted fellow late-night hosts “Oh boy” after Melania Trump publicly called for ABC to fire him
• John Oliver and Jimmy Fallon revealed the group chat moment during Stephen Colbert’s final-weeks celebration on May 11
• The drama stems from Kimmel’s “expectant widow” joke about Melania, made days before a shooting at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner
• Kimmel later defended the joke as a “light roast” about the 23-year age gap between Donald and Melania Trump
• ABC stood by Kimmel, and he appeared at Disney’s upfront event this week joking about the whole ordeal

When Melania Trump went on social media demanding that ABC fire Jimmy Kimmel, the late-night host’s first move wasn’t a press statement or a call to his lawyer. He opened a group chat with his fellow comedians and typed two words: “Oh boy.”

That detail came out Monday night during a star-studded episode of The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, where Kimmel was joined by Seth Meyers, John Oliver, and Jimmy Fallon for a reunion of the Strike Force Five crew — all gathering to celebrate Colbert’s final weeks on air before his May 21 finale. At one point, Colbert asked the group if they’d ever imagined doing jobs that the president of the United States would have “strong feelings about.”

That’s when Kimmel couldn’t help himself.

“You know what’s even weirder? Doing a job that his wife has strong feelings about,” he said, drawing instant laughter. “That’s where it crosses over.”

“Most of us have avoided that part,” Meyers deadpanned.

Oliver then let the group chat secret out. “It’s an amazing thing to get a text from Jimmy saying ‘Oh boy,’ and then a picture of Melania mad at him,” he said. “What a way to start the day.”

Fallon, never one to let a moment pass, admitted he had a slightly different reaction. “And then I sent a text to you guys, and I said, ‘Hey, don’t be mad at me, but I liked it.’ I think she’s got a point.”

How the ‘Expectant Widow’ Joke Became a White House Crisis

The joke that started everything aired on April 23, when Kimmel performed an “alternative” White House Correspondents’ Dinner segment on Jimmy Kimmel Live! Standing in for the real event — which the late-night community has largely boycotted — he looked into the camera and said: “Our first lady, Melania, is here. Look at Melania, so beautiful. Mrs. Trump, you have a glow like an expectant widow.”

Two days later, a gunman opened fire at the hotel hosting the actual White House Correspondents’ Dinner in Washington, D.C., in what authorities described as an attempt targeting the president and members of his administration. The timing turned Kimmel’s joke — a riff on the 23-year age gap between Donald, 79, and Melania, 56 — into something the White House was determined to treat as far more sinister.

Melania posted publicly, writing in part: “It is time for ABC to take a stand. How many times will ABC’s leadership enable Kimmel’s atrocious behavior at the expense of our community?” She also called him a “coward” and said “people like Kimmel shouldn’t have the opportunity to enter our homes each evening to spread hate.”

The president went further. On Truth Social, Trump wrote: “When is ABC Fake News Network firing seriously unfunny Jimmy Kimmel, who incompetently presides over one of the Lowest Rated shows on Television. People are angry. It better be soon!!!” In a separate post, he called it “something far beyond the pale” and demanded Kimmel be “immediately fired by Disney and ABC.”

MAGA influencers piled on. Conservative talk shows spent weeks dissecting the joke. The FCC, notably, announced it was investigating Disney-owned broadcast networks over their DEI practices — a move that came just one day after Trump’s firing demand, and which Disney pushed back against, saying the agency’s actions “threaten to upend decades of settled law and practice and chill critical protected speech.”

Kimmel didn’t back down. He addressed the controversy on his April 27 monologue, calling it “obviously a joke about their age difference and the look of joy we see on her face every time they’re together.” He added: “It was a very light roast joke about the fact that he’s almost 80 and she’s younger than I am. It was not by any stretch a call to assassination.” And then he turned it back on Melania directly: “I agree that hateful and violent rhetoric is something we should reject. I do. And I think a great place to start to dial that back would be to have a conversation with your husband about it.”

ABC stood by him. The drama, eventually, fizzled.

The “Saddest Part” of Getting Called Out by the White House

Back on Colbert’s couch Monday, Colbert pressed Kimmel on what it actually feels like to wake up and see that kind of attention rolling in from 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.

“The saddest part of it,” Kimmel said, “is that I realize in those moments that the only four people who care are sitting right here. It takes 12 hours for the rest of the people in my life to even figure out that anything’s going on.”

He paused for effect. “Two hours after that, a guy I used to work with sent me a text. He’s like, ‘Hey, do you know a real estate lawyer?'”

The room fell apart. It’s a very Kimmel observation — the absurdity that a presidential call for your firing barely registers outside a very small circle of people who are, at this point, almost used to it.

Back to Business at Disney’s Upfront

That same sense of humor was on full display the next day, when Kimmel appeared at Disney’s annual advertising upfront presentation on Tuesday — very much still employed, very much still cracking jokes.

“I didn’t think I’d ever see you guys again either,” he told the room of advertisers, acknowledging the elephant directly. He noted that his ratings are actually up this year, crediting “our partners in Washington” for the boost.

On the subject of ABC pulling shows from the air, he quipped: “Usually in order for ABC to pull you off the air, you have to throw a chair at your Mormon boyfriend” — a pointed reference to Secret Lives of Mormon Wives star Taylor Frankie Paul, whose Bachelorette season was shelved amid her own controversy.

“Yes, the president has tried to get me twice over the last six months — that’s one way to look at it,” Kimmel said. “You could also say I’ve generated unparalleled engagement across a variety of platforms.”

He closed his roughly ten-minute monologue with a line that got the room: “Hiring me 24 years ago, just from a purely mathematical standpoint, was the worst personnel decision that Disney Corporation has ever made.”

Then, near the end: “That’s it for me — probably forever.”

It’s the kind of joke that only lands if you’re not actually worried. And right now, at least, Kimmel doesn’t seem to be.

The post Kimmel’s 2-Word Text to Late-Night Hosts After Melania Drama appeared first on Cream.

• Jimmy Kimmel opened Disney’s 2026 upfront presentation with a 10-minute monologue roasting his own tumultuous year
• He joked that “the president has tried to f-k me twice” while crediting Trump for boosting his ratings
• Kimmel quipped ABC only pulls you off air if you “throw a chair at your Mormon boyfriend” — a dig at Taylor Frankie Paul’s Bachelorette fallout
• He admitted he’s cost Disney “billions” and called his hiring “the worst personnel decision” in company history
• The appearance came just a day after Kimmel joined fellow late-night hosts on Colbert’s show, where his two-word reaction to Melania’s callout was revealed

Jimmy Kimmel walked into Disney’s upfront presentation on Tuesday and did exactly what you’d expect from a man who’s spent the last year as a walking political lightning rod — he made it funny.

Introduced by Ryan Seacrest at the Javits Center in New York, Kimmel took the stage to big applause and immediately leaned into the absurdity of his situation. “I didn’t think I’d ever see you guys again either,” he told the assembled advertisers and Disney brass. “But the bad boy of data and measurement solutions is back.”

It set the tone for a roughly 10-minute monologue that was equal parts self-deprecating, politically sharp, and genuinely hilarious — the kind of performance that reminded everyone why ABC has kept him around for 24 years, even when keeping him around has gotten very expensive.

“The President Has Tried to Get Me Twice”

Kimmel didn’t dance around the drama. He went straight at it.

“The president has tried to f-k me twice over the last six months — that’s one way to look at it,” he said. “You could also say I’ve generated unparalleled engagement across a variety of platforms.”

He also took stock of the financial damage. “I cost our company a lot of money this year, billions,” Kimmel said. “It is very possible that no employee in the history of any company has cost their employer more. Hiring me 24 years ago, just from a purely mathematical standpoint, was the worst personnel decision that Disney Corporation has ever made. Not even the captain of the Exxon Valdez did more damage.”

His show’s ratings, though? Up. “Largely thanks to our partners in Washington,” he noted.

The backstory behind those jokes has been a genuinely wild ride. Last fall, Kimmel was briefly pulled off the air after comments he made about conservative activist Charlie Kirk’s killing. Then in late April, he performed a parody White House Correspondents’ Dinner roast in which he said Melania Trump had “a glow like an expectant widow” — a crack he’s since clarified was about the 23-year age gap between the president and first lady. The joke landed just days before a gunman attempted to storm the actual WHCD event at a Washington, D.C. hotel.

Melania fired back on X, calling Kimmel’s rhetoric “hateful and violent” and saying “people like Kimmel shouldn’t have the opportunity to enter our homes each evening to spread hate.” Trump escalated on Truth Social: “This is something far beyond the pale. Jimmy Kimmel should be immediately fired by Disney and ABC.” The FCC, meanwhile, launched an accelerated licensing review of Disney-owned broadcast stations — which FCC chair Brendan Carr insists has nothing to do with displeasing the White House.

Disney has pushed back, saying the agency’s actions “threaten to upend decades of settled law and practice and chill critical protected speech.” And Kimmel, clearly, has not gone quietly.

The Taylor Frankie Paul Dig

He saved one of his sharpest lines for a more local target. Addressing the idea that ABC might pull him from the air, Kimmel quipped: “Usually in order for ABC to pull you off the air, you have to throw a chair at your Mormon boyfriend.”

The room got it immediately. It was a direct reference to Taylor Frankie Paul’s controversy — the Secret Lives of Mormon Wives star whose season of The Bachelorette was shelved after a highly publicized incident with her boyfriend. The joke landed, by multiple accounts, very well.

Near the end of his set, Kimmel signed off with characteristic dry wit: “That’s it for me — probably forever.”

“Oh Boy” — The Two Words That Started It All

The upfront appearance came one day after Kimmel joined Stephen Colbert, John Oliver, Seth Meyers, and Jimmy Fallon for a special episode of The Late Show — a reunion of the Strike Force Five podcast ahead of Colbert’s final episode on May 21.

It was Oliver who revealed how Kimmel first reacted when Melania’s post went live. After the first lady’s tweet hit, Kimmel sent two words to a group chat of his fellow comics: “Oh, boy.”

“It’s an amazing thing to get a text from Jimmy saying ‘Oh, boy,’ and then a picture of Melania mad at him,” Oliver said. “What a way to start the day!”

Fallon admitted he had a slightly different reaction. “And then I sent a text to you guys, and I said, ‘Hey, don’t be mad at me, but I liked it. I think she’s got a point.'”

When Colbert asked Kimmel how it feels to wake up to that kind of attention, Kimmel’s answer was perfectly, deflating-ly honest: “The saddest part of it is that I realize in those moments that the only four people who care are sitting right here. It takes 12 hours for the rest of the people in my life to even figure out that anything’s going on.”

He also got one good line in about Colbert’s impending exit — when the Late Show cancellation came up, Kimmel told him: “Don’t worry, give me a few months and it’ll be Strike Force Three.”

Back at the upfront, the message from Disney was clear: Kimmel is still their guy. The drama has quieted. The FCC review continues. And as of Tuesday, ABC’s most controversial employee was back on stage in New York, joking about how much it’s all cost — and getting a standing ovation for it.

The post Kimmel Owns His Trump Drama at Disney Upfront appeared first on Cream.

• Jimmy Kimmel texted fellow late-night hosts “Oh, boy” after Melania Trump publicly called him out on social media
• John Oliver, Jimmy Fallon, Seth Meyers, and Kimmel appeared together on a special episode of The Late Show with Stephen Colbert
• The drama stems from Kimmel’s joke that Melania had “a glow like an expectant widow” — made days before a gunman targeted the WHCA dinner
• Both Donald and Melania Trump demanded ABC and Disney fire Kimmel over the remark
• The Late Show reunion was part of a farewell run for Colbert, whose final episode airs May 21

When Melania Trump went on social media to blast Jimmy Kimmel for a joke about her, Kimmel did what any reasonable person would do: he texted the group chat. And according to John Oliver, those first two words said everything.

“It’s an amazing thing to get a text from Jimmy saying ‘Oh, boy,’ and then a picture of Melania mad at him,” Oliver told the audience during Monday’s special episode of The Late Show with Stephen Colbert. “What a way to start the day!”

The episode brought together five of late-night’s biggest names — Colbert, Kimmel, Oliver, Jimmy Fallon, and Seth Meyers — for a rare joint appearance as Colbert counts down to his final broadcast on May 21. It was a reunion of the Strike Force Five podcast crew, and the conversation quickly turned to the controversy that had dogged Kimmel for weeks.

The Joke That Started It All

On April 23, Kimmel taped what he called an “alternative” White House Correspondents’ Dinner segment for Jimmy Kimmel Live! — a parody roast that included a pointed line about the first lady. “Our first lady, Melania, is here. Look at Melania, so beautiful. Mrs. Trump, you have a glow like an expectant widow,” Kimmel said during the bit.

The timing became deeply complicated when, two days later, a gunman was stopped attempting to enter the Washington, D.C. Hilton where the actual WHCA dinner was being held, with what authorities described as apparent designs on killing the president and members of his Cabinet. Melania seized on the moment, posting on April 27 that Kimmel’s joke amounted to “hateful and violent rhetoric” that was “intended to divide our country” and calling on ABC to “take a stand” against him.

Donald Trump went further on Truth Social: “This is something far beyond the pale. Jimmy Kimmel should be immediately fired by Disney and ABC.” And then, separately: “When is ABC Fake News Network firing seriously unfunny Jimmy Kimmel, who incompetently presides over one of the Lowest Rated shows on Television. People are angry. It better be soon!!!”

Melania also called Kimmel a “coward,” saying “people like Kimmel shouldn’t have the opportunity to enter our homes each evening to spread hate.”

Kimmel addressed it directly in his April 27 monologue, describing the comment as “obviously a joke about their age difference and the look of joy we see on her face every time they’re together.” He was more blunt in a follow-up: “It was a very light roast joke about the fact that he’s almost 80 and she’s younger than I am. It was not by any stretch a call to assassination.”

The Group Chat Reaction

Back on Monday’s Late Show, Colbert asked the group whether they had ever imagined they’d be doing jobs the president of the United States had “strong feelings” about.

“You know what’s even weirder?” Kimmel said. “Doing a job that his wife has strong feelings about.”

“Most of us have avoided that part,” Meyers deadpanned.

That’s when Oliver dropped the detail about the group text — the “Oh, boy” message paired with a screenshot of Melania’s post. And then Fallon, never one to miss a moment, cheerfully threw Kimmel under the bus.

“And then I sent a text to you guys, and I said, ‘Hey, don’t be mad at me, but I liked it,'” Fallon said. “I think she’s got a point.”

When Colbert pressed Kimmel on how it feels to wake up and see that kind of attention rolling in, the answer was more self-deprecating than you might expect from someone at the center of a White House firestorm.

“The saddest part of it is that I realize in those moments that the only four people who care are sitting right here,” Kimmel said. “It takes 12 hours for the rest of the people in my life to even figure out that anything’s going on.” He paused, then added the kicker: “Two hours after that, a guy I used to work with sent me a text. He’s like, ‘Hey, do you know a real estate lawyer?'”

A Farewell With a Few Scores to Settle

The Melania drama wasn’t the only thing on the table. The episode had a charged undercurrent throughout, because everyone in that room knows what’s coming: Colbert’s last show airs May 21, after CBS announced it was ending The Late Show for what the network called financial reasons.

Colbert has been measured but pointed about the decision, particularly given that it came after Paramount Global — CBS’s parent company — settled a lawsuit brought by Trump over a 60 Minutes interview for $16 million. “The network had clearly already done it once by cutting that $16 million check,” Colbert told The Hollywood Reporter. “There are many people who believe there was another reason. And, as I said in the most measured tones I could muster, there is a reason why people believe that.”

Kimmel wasn’t quite as measured. He called out CBS and Paramount+ directly, asking the audience, “Why aren’t you people canceling Paramount+? Because you didn’t have it in the first place?” And when Colbert asked if there was anything left to say, Kimmel didn’t hold back: “The outrage that your show is being thrown off the air? I am waiting for angry Stephen to come out. I want to see you go nuts.”

The audience chanted Colbert’s name. Oliver joked, “That’s exactly what they shouted at Bruce Banner in the lab before things went south.” Kimmel, for his part, kept it going: “When this guy takes off his glasses and shakes out his hair, it’s the sexiest god—- thing that you’ve ever seen.”

Kimmel also announced he won’t air a new episode on the night of Colbert’s finale — the same gesture he made when David Letterman signed off years ago.

When someone brought up the likelihood that Colbert’s cancellation might eventually shrink the group, Kimmel found the line of the night: “Don’t worry, give me a few months and it’ll be Strike Force Three.”

The post Kimmel’s 2-Word Text After Melania Came for Him appeared first on Cream.

• Stephen Colbert hosted Jimmy Kimmel, Jimmy Fallon, John Oliver, and Seth Meyers on Monday’s Late Show for a late-night summit
• Kimmel offered Colbert a full-time hosting gig; Fallon told him he was welcome “anytime” — then jokingly dodged pinning down a date
• The hosts riffed on Trump’s fixation with late-night, Kimmel’s brief suspension, and Melania’s outrage over a joke
• The Late Show with Stephen Colbert ends May 21, replaced by Byron Allen’s Comics Unleashed
• David Letterman has called CBS leadership “lying weasels” over the cancellation

Stephen Colbert isn’t going quietly. With just days left before The Late Show goes dark on May 21, he pulled off one of the most memorable tapings of his run — gathering Jimmy Kimmel, Jimmy Fallon, John Oliver, and Seth Meyers on his stage for a late-night summit that was equal parts roast, reunion, and goodbye.

The mood was warm but the jokes were sharp. When Colbert reflected that ending the show was a “bummer” because he’d wanted to keep going with his crew, he quickly pivoted to the silver lining: “Now I can be a guest on all your shows.”

Kimmel didn’t miss a beat. “You can host my show,” he shot back. Colbert asked if he could step in during the summer, and Kimmel told him he could be there all year. Fallon echoed the offer, saying Colbert was welcome on The Tonight Show “anytime you want to go on” — then, when Colbert pressed him for an actual date, Fallon grinned and said, “Enjoy a little time off.”

Trump, Melania, and the Group Chat

The conversation turned to the elephant in the room — or rather, the one posting on Truth Social during their shows. Colbert asked his fellow hosts whether, as young comedians coming up, any of them imagined they’d be doing jobs that the President of the United States would have “strong feelings about.”

Kimmel, who has been in Trump’s crosshairs more than once, went there immediately. “You know what’s even weirder? Doing a job that his wife has strong feelings about.” That was a nod to the moment in April when both Trump and Melania called for Kimmel’s suspension after he joked she had a “glow like an expectant widow.”

Meyers quipped: “Most of us have avoided that part.”

Oliver then revealed that he found out about Kimmel’s Melania situation through their late-night group chat — yes, there is a late-night group chat. “It’s an amazing thing to get, in a group text, a text from Jimmy saying, ‘Oh, boy.’ And then a picture of Melania mad at him,” Oliver said, laughing.

Meyers had perhaps the most perfectly deadpan take on the whole Trump-watching-late-night phenomenon. “The thing I like, he posts when the show airs, and I want to say I appreciate that he is watching linear television,” he said. “If I would make my case for late-night, it’s that leaders of the free world are watching it when it airs.”

Making the Case for Late-Night

Colbert also asked his guests to make a case for the genre, which has taken its hits in recent years. Kimmel pointed to the audience loyalty he witnessed firsthand when Jimmy Kimmel Live! was briefly pulled off the air last September following controversy over comments he made about political activist Charlie Kirk’s shooting.

“We have a lot of shows. 30,000 people watching each one, and it adds up,” Kimmel said. “People watch us on YouTube now. People have a lot of different options and they keep coming to us. I will tell you, when I got knocked off the air for a few days, people canceled Disney+. Why aren’t people canceling Paramount+? Because you never had it in the first place?”

That last line hit differently given the context. CBS announced the cancellation of The Late Show back in July, calling it “purely a financial decision” — though the timing raised eyebrows. It came shortly after Colbert made a joke about CBS paying a $16 million settlement to Trump over a lawsuit alleging “deceptive editing” in a 60 Minutes episode, and while Paramount’s merger with David Ellison’s Skydance was still awaiting FCC approval.

What Comes Next — and What Letterman Said

The 11:35 p.m. slot won’t go to another traditional late-night host. CBS has handed it to producer Byron Allen, who will air back-to-back half-hour episodes of Comics Unleashed, followed by the comedy game show Funny You Should Ask at 12:37 a.m.

Colbert, characteristically gracious, said he personally reached out to Allen the morning after the announcement. “God bless him. I know Byron. We got to know each other last year, actually. He’s fascinating. You know his history with Carson?” Colbert told The Hollywood Reporter, referencing the fact that Allen became the youngest comic ever to perform on The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson at just 18 years old. Colbert joked that he told Allen it would be “lovely” if he could drop Carson a note — a wink at the fact that Johnny Carson died in 2005.

As for whether he minded the slot not going to a traditional late-night successor? “It’s none of my business,” Colbert said simply.

Not everyone has been so measured about the whole thing. David Letterman, who will be among Colbert’s final guests before the May 21 finale, has been the loudest voice calling out CBS over the cancellation. In a recent interview, Letterman accused the network’s leadership of engineering Colbert’s exit as part of the Skydance deal — and he didn’t mince words.

“He was dumped because the people selling the network to Skydance said, ‘Oh no, there’s not going to be any trouble with that guy. We’re going to take care of the show. We’re just going to throw that into the deal. When will the ink on the check dry?'” Letterman said. “I’m just going to go on record as saying: They’re lying. Let me just add one other thing, Jason. They’re lying weasels.”

Colbert’s final episode airs Thursday, May 21 on CBS. After more than a decade behind that desk, he’ll leave with his crew, his peers, and apparently an open invitation to guest host pretty much anywhere he wants — though Fallon would prefer he take a vacation first.

The post Late Night Hosts Tell Colbert He Can Host Their Shows Anytime appeared first on Cream.

• Jimmy Kimmel Live! will not air a new episode on May 21, the night of Stephen Colbert’s Late Show finale on CBS.
• Kimmel made the same move in 2015 for David Letterman’s final Late Show broadcast.
• Colbert, Kimmel, Fallon, Meyers, and Oliver will reunite on May 11 for a Strike Force Five reprise.
• CBS canceled The Late Show in July 2025, citing financial pressures — a decision many tied to Paramount’s merger with Skydance.
• NBC’s Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon was still scheduled to air a new episode on finale night.

Jimmy Kimmel is stepping aside for his friend’s final bow. Jimmy Kimmel Live! will go dark on Thursday, May 21 — the night The Late Show with Stephen Colbert airs its last episode on CBS — with ABC opting to run a repeat in its place. The decision, first reported by LateNighter, is being made “out of deference to Colbert’s sendoff.”

New episodes of Kimmel’s show will air as scheduled Monday through Wednesday, May 18–20. But Thursday night belongs to Colbert.

It’s a gesture Kimmel has made exactly once before. On May 20, 2015, he pulled a new episode the night David Letterman signed off from the same CBS franchise. “I have too much respect for Dave to do anything that would distract viewers from watching his final show,” Kimmel said at the time. That instinct — to get out of the way when history is being made — is apparently still his instinct now.

A Friendship Forged Under Fire

Kimmel and Colbert have been competitors at 11:35 p.m. for years, but their relationship runs much deeper than ratings. When CBS announced the cancellation last July, Kimmel didn’t stay quiet. He took to Instagram Stories to post: “Love you Stephen. F— you and all your Sheldons CBS.” He also put up a billboard in Los Angeles encouraging Emmy voters to back Colbert for Outstanding Talk Series — a category The Late Show went on to win. At the ceremony, Colbert thanked CBS for “giving us the privilege to be part of the late-night tradition, which I hope continues long after we’re no longer doing the show.”

The two also go back to the early COVID days, when they worked together during the pandemic, and to the summer of 2023, when the Hollywood writers’ and actors’ strikes brought late night to a standstill. Kimmel, Colbert, Jimmy Fallon, Seth Meyers, and John Oliver launched the Strike Force Five podcast during that period, donating proceeds to support their out-of-work employees. Now, all five are reuniting on the May 11 episode of The Late Show for one last reprise before the curtain comes down.

David Letterman — the man who built the franchise Colbert is now closing — will also stop by for the May 14 episode. Letterman, 79, hosted Late Night on NBC from 1982 to 1993 before moving to CBS, where he launched The Late Show in 1993. Colbert took the desk in September 2015 and has been there for 11 seasons since.

Jimmy Fallon, for his part, has already been paying tribute. Back in March, he serenaded Colbert with a surprise rendition of Frank Sinatra’s “My Way” — a moment that landed exactly as intended.

The Cancellation That Shocked Late Night

CBS announced it was ending The Late Show franchise entirely in July 2025, calling it “purely a financial decision against a challenging backdrop in late night” and stating it was “not related in any way to the show’s performance, content or other matters happening at Paramount.” The timing, though, raised eyebrows everywhere. The announcement came just days after Colbert called Paramount Global’s $16 million settlement of Donald Trump’s lawsuit over a 60 Minutes interview a “big fat bribe” — a settlement that many legal experts had already dismissed as frivolous. It also landed as Paramount was working to finalize its $8 billion merger with David Ellison’s Skydance Media, which the FCC ultimately approved in August 2025.

Numerous media figures criticized the cancellation as a capitulation to political pressure. Paramount pushed back firmly, reiterating the financial rationale. Whatever the reason, the result is the same: a franchise that launched in 1993 ends on May 21.

What replaces it isn’t exactly a comfort. Comics Unleashed with Byron Allen, currently airing at 12:35 a.m., will move into the 11:35 slot — a show Allen leases airtime for rather than one CBS produces, and one that’s been widely criticized as sanitized and cheaply produced.

As for Colbert, 61, he hasn’t announced what’s next — but he’s not exactly sitting still. The lifelong Lord of the Rings devotee is developing a new film in the franchise alongside his son and Warner Bros. Nearly three decades of political satire, and his next chapter involves Middle-earth. Honestly, that tracks.

NBC’s Tonight Show had not announced any plans to pull its May 21 episode as of press time — meaning Fallon will be on the air while Colbert takes his final bow. But Kimmel won’t be. Some gestures speak for themselves.

The post Kimmel Goes Dark for Colbert’s Final Late Show appeared first on Cream.

• Jimmy Kimmel will air a rerun on May 21 so viewers can focus on Stephen Colbert’s Late Show finale without competition
• Kimmel did the same thing for David Letterman’s final Late Show in 2015, setting a precedent he’s now repeating
• Colbert’s final week features Tom Hanks, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Pedro Pascal, Barack Obama, and Letterman himself returning to the Ed Sullivan Theater
• The Late Show was canceled by CBS in July 2025 in what many have called a politically motivated decision tied to the Paramount-Skydance merger
• Jimmy Fallon’s Tonight Show is currently still scheduled to air a new episode opposite Colbert’s finale

Jimmy Kimmel is stepping aside for Stephen Colbert. On May 21 — the night of Colbert’s final episode of The Late Show on CBS — Jimmy Kimmel Live! will air a rerun, a quiet but meaningful gesture of respect from one late-night host to another. ABC confirmed the decision, with LateNighter first reporting that Kimmel personally confirmed he’d go dark that night out of deference to Colbert’s sendoff.

It’s not the first time Kimmel has done this. In May 2015, he made the same call for David Letterman’s farewell, urging his own audience to change the channel. “Please do not watch it,” Kimmel said at the time. “Especially if you’re a young person who doesn’t understand what all the fuss is about. Dave is the best and you should see him.” Eleven years later, the same spirit applies — just a different legend walking out the door.

What makes it sting a little more this time is the reason Colbert is leaving in the first place. CBS announced the cancellation in July 2025, framing it as a purely financial decision — the network cited an alleged $40 million annual loss. But the timing raised eyebrows immediately: the ax fell shortly after Colbert publicly criticized CBS’s parent company Paramount for settling a lawsuit brought by President Donald Trump over a 60 Minutes interview with Kamala Harris. The FCC approved the $8 billion Skydance-Paramount merger roughly a week after the cancellation was announced. Trump, for his part, has repeatedly celebrated the show’s end.

Kimmel, who has called the $40 million loss figure “beyond nonsensical,” is no stranger to the current political climate himself. Trump urged ABC last month to fire Kimmel over a joke about Melania Trump, and FCC chairman Brendan Carr previously threatened ABC over a Kimmel joke following Charlie Kirk’s assassination attempt — a threat serious enough that Disney temporarily suspended Kimmel hours after it was made.

Notably, NBC’s The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon is currently still scheduled to air a new episode on May 21, meaning Colbert will have at least one 11:35 competitor that night — though Fallon will be front and center at Colbert’s table days earlier.

A Final Week That Looks Like a Greatest Hits Album

The send-off Colbert is getting is something else entirely. The final week of The Late Show is shaping up to be one of the most stacked stretches of late-night television in years.

It kicks off Monday, May 11, with a full Strike Force Five reunion. Kimmel, Fallon, Seth Meyers, and John Oliver will all join Colbert on the same couch — a callback to the podcast the five hosts launched together during the concurrent Writers Guild and SAG-AFTRA strikes in 2023, with proceeds going to their crew members who went without pay during the work stoppage. TV Guide critic Matt Roush called it a genuine moment: “He’s gonna make a little bit of Late Night history on Monday night.” Monday’s episode will also feature a Broadway performance from Annaleigh Ashford, Christopher Jackson, Bernadette Peters, Ben Platt, and Patrick Wilson.

Tuesday brings Julia Louis-Dreyfus and Pedro Pascal. Wednesday is Tom Hanks — and, in what might be the week’s most talked-about segment, former President Barack Obama will sit down for The Colbert Questionert, the recurring bit where famous guests answer personal questions about things like their favorite sandwich and first concert.

Then Thursday. Letterman comes home.

David Letterman — who launched The Late Show in 1993, hosted it for 22 years, and handed the keys to Colbert in 2015 — will return to the Ed Sullivan Theater for what will almost certainly be an emotional night. The Strokes are the musical guest. And Kimmel’s screen will be dark.

Letterman hasn’t been quiet about how he feels about all of this. In a recent interview with the New York Times, he went after CBS with characteristic bluntness: “He was dumped because the people selling the network to Skydance said, ‘Oh no, there’s not going to be any trouble with that guy. We’re going to take care of the show. We’re just going to throw that into the deal. When will the ink on the check dry?’ I’m just going to go on record as saying: They’re lying. Let me just add one other thing, Jason. They’re lying weasels.”

Colbert himself has been more measured, but no less candid. In a recent Hollywood Reporter exit interview, he recalled the phone call with CBS entertainment head George Cheeks after the cancellation — noting that Cheeks told his manager first, and didn’t speak with Colbert directly until later in the summer. When they did talk, Colbert made one thing clear: he was going to address the widespread belief that the cancellation was politically motivated, and he wasn’t going to pretend otherwise.

He’s also been characteristically funny about what comes next. Colbert mentioned a Lord of the Rings script in the pipeline, some “much more important” family events on the calendar, and admitted he’s genuinely relieved at the idea of stepping away from the daily news cycle. He’s even got one dream booking he’s still chasing: Pope Leo XIV, whom he called his “white whale.” “I wrote him,” Colbert told THR. “I said, ‘Your Holiness, I hope this letter finds you well or, at the very least, infallible. Would you please come on my show?'” And with a very Colbert twist: “Now, if the pope goes on Kimmel instead, I’m going to think hard about the Presbyterian church. That’s all I’m saying.”

https://youtube.com/watch?v=RIUIBuPCS9Y%3Frel%3D0

After May 21, the 11:35 p.m. slot on CBS will go to Byron Allen and his Allen Media Group, with back-to-back episodes of Comics Unleashed moving in starting May 22. The Ed Sullivan Theater — where Letterman reigned for over two decades and Colbert for eleven more years — will face its own uncertain future.

“I don’t know,” Roush said of the iconic venue. “It’s such a historic venue. I can’t imagine they won’t use it for something.”

For now, the only thing that matters is May 21. And on that night, at least one of Colbert’s rivals will make sure you don’t have to choose.

The post Kimmel Goes Dark for Colbert’s Final Late Show appeared first on Cream.

• Jimmy Kimmel compared Trump’s Iran negotiation style to bad sex during his Wednesday night monologue
• Kimmel also mocked Trump’s bizarre Oval Office remarks to children about transgender athletes
• The feud with the White House is escalating — both Donald and Melania Trump are publicly calling for Kimmel’s firing
• The FCC has ordered a review of ABC’s station licenses amid pressure from the Trump administration
• Constitutional law experts say any legal threats against Kimmel are “utterly frivolous” and protected by the First Amendment

Jimmy Kimmel had a lot to work with this week — and he used every bit of it.

In his Wednesday night monologue on Jimmy Kimmel Live!, the late-night host unloaded on President Donald Trump’s ongoing negotiations with Iran, delivering what may be his most memorable line of the year. “For him, a negotiation, it’s like sex,” Kimmel said. “He’s bad at it. It mostly consists of flailing around. And he can only do it for a short amount of time before he starts yelling that he’s finished.”

He opened the bit with a pointed question about the Strait of Hormuz — “I wonder which will open first, the Strait of Hormuz or his ballroom?” — before settling into a full takedown of the White House’s handling of the Iran conflict. Kimmel mocked reports that a deal could be imminent, noting that the details were “still very much in flux. As in, what the flux are we doing over there?”

He also drew a pointed comparison to the Obama-era nuclear deal — the one Trump spent years calling the worst deal in history — noting that the proposed new agreement would reportedly include a uranium enrichment moratorium of more than 10 years, shorter than the Obama deal’s 15-year restrictions. “And now he’s going to top it by making an even worse worst deal in history,” Kimmel said. “It’s called ‘The Art of the Deal.’ Folks, you should read the book.”

Kimmel also took aim at the administration’s ever-shifting vocabulary around the conflict. “One of the most ridiculous things about this war is that half the time they talk about it, they don’t call it a war because you’re supposed to get approval from Congress to go to war, which Trump did not do,” he said. After playing a clip of Trump describing the situation, Kimmel tracked the linguistic evolution in real time: “First it was an excursion, then it was a mini war. And now it’s a skirmish. Next month it’ll be a tiff. It’ll be a $200 billion tiff.”

“This Man Is Insane”

The Iran riff came a night after Kimmel was equally floored by Trump’s Tuesday Oval Office event — a ceremony to reinstate the Presidential Physical Fitness Award, which quickly went somewhere else entirely.

Surrounded by grade-school children and administration officials, Trump riffed on Iran, why he deserved a Nobel Peace Prize, the planned UFC fight on the White House lawn, and then — pivoting sharply — “transgender mutilization.” He caught himself mid-rant, told the kids “don’t listen to this,” and then kept going anyway.

“This man is insane, OK?” Kimmel said flatly. “He made up a word, ‘mutilization,’ and he’s telling children about it. Next thing you know, he’ll be telling them his favorite story, the tale of the lady weightlifter.”

Sure enough, in the next clip, Trump was doing exactly that — repeating a story from his campaign trail days about a transgender weightlifter, directing it at a preteen boy. “You’ll never compete against women in powerlifting,” Trump told the child. “Do you think you can take me in a fight?”

Kimmel’s response was pure deadpan: “Very, very normal. Just a totally lucid, very rational, clear-minded, level-headed person sharing his thoughts on gender reassignment with a group of young kids. That’s our guy.”

Kimmel also flagged a moment where Trump appeared to suggest a young girl in attendance — a volleyball player — was too short for the sport and should try soccer instead. The host’s reaction was, again, withering sarcasm.

The Feud That Won’t Quit

All of this is unfolding against the backdrop of the most intense stretch of the long-running Kimmel-Trump feud. It started in earnest on April 23, when Kimmel joked during a “pretend roast” segment that Melania Trump had “a glow like an expectant widow” — a line he later said was “a very light roast joke about the fact that he’s almost 80 and she’s younger than I am.” Two days later, a gunman was charged with attempting to assassinate the president at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner.

Melania issued a rare public statement, calling Kimmel’s rhetoric “hateful and violent” and demanding action from ABC. “People like Kimmel shouldn’t have the opportunity to enter our homes each evening to spread hate,” she wrote. “A coward, Kimmel hides behind ABC because he knows the network will keep running cover to protect him.”

Trump, for his part, called Kimmel “a lowlife, whether he apologized or not” during an appearance on Newsmax. White House communications director Steven Cheung called for Kimmel to be fired “immediately” and “shunned for the rest of his life.” A White House spokesperson told The Daily Beast this week that “nobody in their right mind wants to watch or listen to Jimmy Kimmel, who is a talentless hack with failing ratings.”

The pressure hasn’t been just rhetorical. The FCC last week ordered a review of ABC’s station licenses, with the Trump-aligned agency citing possible violations of federal law — a move widely seen as connected to the administration’s campaign against the network. Disney, ABC’s parent company, is facing mounting pressure on multiple fronts.

Kimmel has not backed down. On Monday, he poked fun at an uncaptioned photo Trump posted on Truth Social showing Melania smiling. “At 11:04, he posted this even more unbelievable picture of Melania smiling,” Kimmel said. “I don’t know the last time we saw that.” He also riffed on Trump’s claim — made at a Florida retirement community — that Melania “hates” when he dances to “Y.M.C.A.” at rallies. “What a buzzkill,” Kimmel said. “Why would she hate that? It’s so much fun. He’s just trying to have fun.”

On Wednesday, he also mocked Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s upcoming meeting with Pope Leo XIV, noting that the pope had publicly rebuked Trump’s stance on nuclear weapons. “Marco Rubio plans to sit down with Pope Leo to discuss the attacks from our president, the war on Iran, and on a personal level: why God didn’t answer his prayers for smaller ears,” Kimmel joked. He then showed viewers a close-up of Rubio wearing oversized Florsheim shoes — reportedly a gift from Trump that Rubio was too afraid to decline — and said incredulously, “This is the guy who’s going to confront the pope.”

As for the legal threats swirling around him, constitutional law scholar Robert McWhirter, author of Fixing the Framers’ Failure, is unambiguous about where Kimmel stands. “From the very founding of the American republic, ridiculing public officials hasn’t merely been tolerated, it’s been explicitly protected by the First Amendment,” McWhirter said. “These lawsuits are pure theater. It’s a show of claimed offense designed to deter speech.”

Kimmel, for his part, seems to have figured that out. When asked recently about his apparent knack for making jokes that land him in hot water, he offered his own explanation: “Every day in the morning, I wake up, I make coffee, and then I look into the future to see which events have yet to occur and then we write jokes we know are going to make trouble.”

The post Jimmy Kimmel Compares Trump’s Iran Talks to Bad Sex appeared first on Cream.