Jimmy Kimmel Once 'Prayed' for ABC to Cancel His Show: 'I Couldn't Do It Anymore'

Jimmy Kimmel once wanted out of his ABC late-night talk show, even hoping the network would pull the plug.

“I didn’t know what I was doing, and I would pray that they canceled the show sometimes,” Kimmel, 57, revealed on the October 22 edition of Ted Danson’s "Everybody Knows Your Name" podcast. Since 2003, he has hosted Jimmy Kimmel Live!, but the early days were not easy.

“I didn’t want to quit because I didn’t want to disappoint all the many people who worked for me, but I couldn't. I was just — I couldn’t do it anymore,” he shared, reflecting on the pressure he faced.

There were nights when the show aired live at midnight without guests. “We didn’t have guests many times,” Kimmel recalled. “There were times it was 5:30 in the afternoon and we didn’t have guests for that night’s show, and I would have to just pick up the phone and call my friends.”

To help combat the pressure, Kimmel leaned on friends like Sarah Silverman, Kathy Griffin, David Alan Grier, Adam Carolla and Anthony Anderson. “God bless them, because I needed them,” Kimmel told Danson. “And they were always ready at a moment’s notice to come on.”

Despite a rocky start, the show eventually stabilized. “We figured out how to do it,” Kimmel said.

He also spiced up the format with running bits to keep viewers engaged and maintain momentum. These remarks come after Kimmel's program faced a suspension due to controversy over a monologue about the suspect in Charlie Kirk’s murder.

While appearing on The Late Show With Stephen Colbert in early October, Kimmel admitted he thought Jimmy Kimmel Live! was “over” when ABC pulled it on September 17, prompting protests from his supporters.

"I was in my office, typing away. I get a phone call. It’s ABC. They say they want to talk to me. This is unusual," he recounted. "As far as I knew, they didn’t even know I was doing a show previous to this."

Kimmel’s suspension caught him off guard. “I have five people who work in my office with me, so the only private place to go is the bathroom. So, I go into the bathroom, and I’m on the phone with the ABC executives, and they say, ‘Listen, we want to take the temperature down. We’re concerned about what you’re going to say tonight, and we decided the best route is to take the show off the air.’”

Kimmel resisted the decision. “I said, ‘I don’t think that’s a good idea,’ and they said, ‘Well, we think it’s a good idea.’ And then there was a vote and I lost the vote,” he explained.

Afterward, he returned to share the news with his staff, joking that his wife, Molly McNearney, an executive producer on the show, commented that "I was whiter than Jim Gaffigan when I came out of there.”