It was the Oscars moment that had audience members, at the ceremony and watching from home, in stitches.
But Oscars host Jimmy Kimmel’s wife almost convinced him to leave the improvised moment out of his monologue.
Towards the end of the Academy Awards ceremony Jimmy Kimmel decided to read out a post that former President Donald Trump had shared on Truth Social commenting on Kimmel’s performance as host.
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In the post, Trump slammed Kimmel’s performance.
“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. Get rid of Kimmel and perhaps replace him with another washed up but cheap ABC “talent”,” Trump wrote of Kimmel.
Kimmel spoke of the moment in a post-Oscars interview with Kelly Ripa and Mark Consuelos explaining that he had been told not to read the post onstage. However he didn’t divulge who had discouraged him.
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Despite the discouragement, the host and comedian decided to read the post onstage asking the audience to “guess which former President just posted that”.
Then he proceeded to respond to the former US President in real time.
“I’m surprised you’re still [up] – isn’t it past your jail time?” he quipped sending the audience into an eruption of laughter and applause.
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Speaking of the hilarious moment in an interview with Variety, Kimmel’s wife Molly McNearney revealed that she was the one who told her husband to ditch the bit.
“I will tell you, I’m really not proud of this, but I tried to talk Jimmy out of reading that,” she told Variety.
“I feel like my instincts are usually right, but I was totally off on that.”
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McNearny, who co-executive produced the Oscars telecast, continued to explain that she was hesitant to give the former President any airtime and risk ending the night on a “sour note”.
Despite his wife’s concerns, Kimmel decided to proceed with the joke and it landed perfectly.
”I will tell you, I’m never going to win an argument in my household again!” McNearney joked.