‘Isn’t it past your jail time?’: Jimmy Kimmel wins cheers at Oscars with Trump jibe
Jimmy Kimmel threw a jab at Donald Trump while onstage at the Oscars less than an hour after the ex-president penned a scathing Truth Social post about the talkshow host.
On Sunday, just ahead of the last award of the night – best picture – getting doled out to Oppenheimer, Kimmel addressed the crowd at the 96th Academy Awards to share a review he had received about his performance as host of the ceremony.
“Has there EVER been a WORSE HOST than Jimmy Kimmel at The Oscars. His opening was that of a less than average person trying too hard to be something which he is not, and never can be,” Kimmel read aloud from his phone.
“Get rid of Kimmel and perhaps replace him with another washed up, but cheap, ABC ‘talent,’ George Slopanopoulos. He would make everybody on stage look bigger, stronger, and more glamorous… blah, blah, blah. MAKE
AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!”
Kimmel then quipped: “See if you can guess which former president just posted that on Truth Social.”
Per Trump’s Truth Social page, nearly all of what Kimmel read aloud had been posted verbatim to Trump’s page at 9.39pm ET.
Kimmel then thanked Trump for watching before asking: “Isn’t it past your jail time?”
The crowd loudly hollered in response to the comment, which was a clear reference to the four criminal cases Trump has been charged in.
He currently faces four felony counts for his attempts to overturn the 2020 election in Washington DC, 13 felony counts for his election interference in Georgia, 34 felony counts in connection with hush-money payments to the adult film star Stormy Daniels in New York, and 40 felony counts for hoarding classified documents in the wake of his presidency and interfering with the government’s efforts to retrieve them in Florida.
Read more about the 2024 Oscars:
• Here’s our news wrap and full list of winners – now read Peter Bradshaw’s verdict• Al Pacino, British mothers and a codpiece envelope: the real winners and losers of the night• Relive how the ceremony unfolded with our liveblog and get up to speed with the top viral moments and the best quotes of the night• Have a gander at how the stars looked on the red carpet and at the show
mezzanine. But when Cillian Murphy won best actor and namechecked his children, a burble of excitement broke out in my row. There wasn’t a hope in hell that we would get close to Murphy himself, but his kids? Good enough.
By the end of the night, the magic of the Oscars had managed to permeate the upper levels. The breakthrough seemed to be Ryan Gosling’s performance of I’m Just Ken, which was so bombastic and overblown that everyone screamed and cheered as if they were watching the resurrection of Beatlemania. Then, when Al Pacino stumbled on stage and presented best picture to Oppenheimer without announcing the nominees or even really the winner, everyone laughed as if they were part of it.
As the night drew to a close, the woman next to me saw her daughter on the stage. Her eyes filled with tears. By now, I was all for the normal people Oscars. It might lack the star wattage of the lower levels, but there is something beautiful and human about going through it surrounded by people who are invested in the outcome.
***
And then, when the ceremony was over, it happened: my big, meaningful celebrity encounter of the night. In the chaos of trying to leave the building, I got on the wrong escalator. Standing in front of me was a gentleman wearing a very comfy-looking pair of Nikes. But at the top of the escalator was a crowd of people who wouldn’t make way.
The man quickly realised that a pile-up might ensue. He turned to me, looked me straight in the eye and said: “This is getting really dangerous.” And that is how I had a brief but important exchange about escalator safety with Ed Begley Jr from Better Call Saul. Not the show’s star, but still …
Would this have qualified as a decent celebrity encounter had I attended the celebrity Oscars? Almost certainly not, because I would have been busy straining my neck to try to see Margot Robbie or Nicolas Cage. But I didn’t attend the celebrity Oscars. I was a proud member of the normal people Oscars – and through that prism Begley is basically Elvis Presley. Truly, it has never felt so good to be second best.
I asked what the hors d’oeuvres were. The server shrugged. Doesn’t matter, her smile implied. They are free and you will eat them