Jimmy Kimmel reveals he may move to Italy to escape Trump
'What’s going on is as bad as you thought it was gonna be. It’s so much worse; it’s just unbelievable'
Article content
Jimmy Kimmel has revealed he has a backup plan if life in Donald Trump’s America becomes too unbearable for him to manage.
The late-night host, who frequently targets the U.S. president in his late-night monologues, told Sarah Silverman on a recent episode of her podcast that he might pack his bags and move to Italy.
tap here to see other videos from our team.
Jimmy Kimmel reveals he may move to Italy to escape Trump Back to video
tap here to see other videos from our team.
“A lot of people I know are thinking about, where are they going to get citizenship?” Silverman said, alluding to celebrities like Rosie O’Donnell and Ellen DeGeneres, who have both left the United States.
“I did get Italian citizenship,” Kimmel replied. “What’s going on (under Trump’s presidency) is as bad as you thought it was gonna be. It’s so much worse; it’s just unbelievable. I feel like it’s probably even worse than he would like it to be.”
Silverman said that she will Google “MAGA regrets” just to see how people who voted for Trump feel less than a year into his second presidency.
“It makes me hope that maybe this will bring people together,” she said.
After late-night host Stephen Colbert was fired last month, Trump has been ramping up his attacks against Kimmel and Tonight Show host Jimmy Fallon.
“I absolutely love that Colbert got fired,” Trump wrote on Truth Social after Colbert’s show got axed. “His talent was even less than his ratings. I hear Jimmy Kimmel is next. Has even less talent than Colbert! (Fox News late-night host) Greg Gutfeld is better than all of them combined, including the Moron on NBC who ruined the once great Tonight Show.”
Colbert was one of Trump’s most persistent late-night critics and during a recent segment of the program, he criticized the deal between the president and Paramount Global, the parent company of CBS, over a 60 Minutes interview with Kamala Harris that a lawsuit alleged was deceptively edited. Colbert called the $16-million settlement a “big fat bribe.”
Fallon said he was “shocked” by the news Colbert’s show had been cancelled and called the Emmy winner “a true friend” in a post shared on Instagram.
Meanwhile, Kimmel lashed out at Colbert’s network for cancelling his show. “F— you … CBS,” he wrote on social media.
After Colbert warned Trump “the gloves are off” as he heads into his last season on the air, the commander-in-chief turned his attention to Kimmel and Fallon.
“The word is, and it’s a strong word at that, Jimmy Kimmel is NEXT to go in the untalented Late Night Sweepstakes and, shortly thereafter, Fallon will be gone,” Trump posted on Truth Social. “These are people with absolutely NO TALENT, who were paid Millions of Dollars for, in all cases, destroying what used to be GREAT Television. It’s really good to see them go, and I hope I played a major part in it!”
Unbowed, Kimmel fired back at the president’s claim on his Instagram Story, writing: “I’m hearing you’re next. Or maybe it’s just another wonderful secret.”
The dig was a reference to an alleged birthday card Trump gave to the late sex criminal Jeffrey Epstein in which he purportedly wrote, “Happy Birthday — and may every day be another wonderful secret,” according to the Wall Street Journal.
But when Trump, who filed a $10-billion lawsuit against the publication, was asked during a White House press briefing whether “the hate Trump business model is going out of business,” he said, “It hasn’t worked for a long time.”
RECOMMENDED VIDEO
tap here to see other videos from our team.
The president then sounded off on the state of late-night television.
“Colbert has no talent. I mean, I could take anybody here, I could go outside on the beautiful streets and pick a couple of people that would do just as well or better. They’d get higher ratings than he did. He’s got no talent. Fallon has no talent. Kimmel has no talent. They’re next. They’re going to be going. I hear they are going to be going. I don’t know, but I would imagine, because Colbert has better ratings than Kimmel or Fallon.”
Trump also weighed in on rumours that Howard Stern’s satellite radio show might be ending, adding: “Howard Stern is a name I haven’t heard. I used to do his show. We used to have fun, but I haven’t heard that name in a long time. What happened? He got terminated? … You know when he went down? When he endorsed Hillary Clinton, he lost his audience. People said, ‘Give me a break.’”
If Kimmel decides to leave, that likely won’t stop him from being a target of Trump’s vicious online attacks.
After O‘Donnell revealed she had moved to Ireland, Trump floated the possibility he might take her citizenship away.
“Because of the fact that Rosie O’Donnell is not in the best interests of our Great Country, I am giving serious consideration to taking away her Citizenship,” Trump wrote in a social media post last month.
Calling her a “threat to humanity,” he added that O’Donnell should stay in Ireland “if they want her.”
Postmedia is committed to maintaining a lively but civil forum for discussion. Please keep comments relevant and respectful. Comments may take up to an hour to appear on the site. You will receive an email if there is a reply to your comment, an update to a thread you follow or if a user you follow comments. Visit our Community Guidelines for more information.