Jimmy Kimmel turned down an offer to host the 2025 Academy Awards because the four-time Oscars host decided it would be “too much” to headline the ceremony for a third time in a row.
The Jimmy Kimmel Live! host admitted that his show “suffers a little bit” during years in which he’s focused on the Oscars during a conversation with California Gov. Gavin Newsom, former NFL player Marshawn Lynch, and NFL agent Doug Hendrickson on their Politickin‘ podcast.
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“I just decided I didn’t want to deal with that this year. It was just too much last year. You wind up pushing everything off till after the Oscars, and then you have to do everything you promised to do after the Oscars, after the Oscars,” said Kimmel, who hosted the prestigious award ceremony in 2017, 2018, 2023, and 2024. “I did two years, it went well. I did another two years, it went well. I figured I’d take a little break.”
Kimmel confessed that he’s “not good” at balancing the Oscars and Jimmy Kimmel Live! during years in which he’s done both. “It’s not one of my strengths,” he added. “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.”
No host has been announced for next year’s Oscars, which are scheduled to air March 2 on ABC. Kimmel said that while there are a lot of people who would make good hosts for the ceremony, “most of them don’t want to do it.” He explained, “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. 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.”
Kimmel is currently taking a summer hiatus from his talk show, marking the third year in a row in which the comedian has invited guest hosts like Ryan Reynolds, Hugh Jackman, Jeff Goldblum, and RuPaul to take over his role. “I think it’s a good exercise for our staff to have another host in there because there are a lot of things that I do when I’m there that they suddenly have to do, and I feel like when I come back, they appreciate me more,” he opined.
