Jimmy Kimmel, born in Brooklyn on 13 November 1967, has hosted ABC’s Jimmy Kimmel Live! since 2003. He has the longest tenure of any current US late-night host and has hosted the Academy Awards four times.
James Christian Kimmel was born on 13 November 1967 in Brooklyn, New York, and grew up in the neighbourhood of Mill Basin. He is the eldest of three children of Joan (née Iacono) and James John Kimmel, who worked at American Express and was an IBM executive. He was raised Catholic and was an altar boy. His mother is of Italian descent, and her grandparents migrated from Ischia after the 1883 earthquake; he obtained Italian citizenship in 2025.
When he was nine the family moved to Las Vegas, where he befriended his neighbour Cleto Escobedo III, later the bandleader on his show. He graduated from Ed W. Clark High School, attended the University of Nevada, Las Vegas for a year, and then Arizona State University for the 1985–86 academic year, leaving without graduating. He received an honorary degree from UNLV in 2013. His family features on his show: his uncle Frank Potenza appeared as a regular from 2003 until 2011, his cousin Sal Iacono became a writer and sketch performer, and his brother Jonathan works as a director.
Inspired by David Letterman’s start in radio, Kimmel began in radio while in high school, hosting a Sunday night interview show on UNLV’s station. In 1989 he landed his first paying job, as morning co-host of The Me and Him Show in Seattle, and he was fired from that station in 1990 and again a year later in Tampa. He later spent five years at KROQ-FM in Los Angeles as “Jimmy the Sports Guy” and met the comedian Adam Carolla.
His television career began with Win Ben Stein’s Money on Comedy Central in 1997, where his quick wit and “everyman” personality contrasted with Stein’s monotone, and the pair won an Emmy for Best Game Show Host. In 1999 he co-hosted The Man Show with Carolla, and the pair created Crank Yankers and later The Andy Milonakis Show under the Jackhole Productions banner.
In January 2003 he left The Man Show to host Jimmy Kimmel Live! on ABC, created as a permanent replacement for Politically Incorrect, which ABC cancelled in 2002. At 23 seasons, his tenure on a single late-night show is second only to Johnny Carson’s 30. He has hosted the Primetime Emmy Awards three times, in 2012, 2016 and 2020, and the Academy Awards four times, in 2017, 2018, 2023 and 2024, and Time named him one of the 100 most influential people in the world in 2018.
In Palm Springs he recruited a young family friend, Carson Daly, as his intern, and the show has not actually aired live since 2004, when censors could not bleep a curse word from Thomas Jane. His film Windy City Heat, which he produced and co-wrote, won the Comedia Award for Best Film at the 2004 Montreal Comedy Festival.
Image: Jimmy Kimmel interviewing President Barack Obama on his show in 2015 (file photo). Photo: Pete Souza / Wikimedia Commons (Public domain)
