With Stephen Colbert now officially off the air, Jimmy Kimmel says he has dusted off his crystal ball and glimpsed his own future on television — and it does not look bright.
Kimmel Reflects on Colbert's Exit
In a new interview with Vulture, via Variety, Kimmel openly discussed how long he might remain on television following his public feud with Donald Trump and the president's calls for his dismissal.
“I feel a little bit defeated about it,” Kimmel told the outlet regarding Colbert's ouster. “In a lot of ways, I feel like I’m looking at my own future.”
Colbert's The Late Show ended last month after CBS announced in July 2025 that it was cancelling the series for financial reasons. The decision came after Colbert described the broadcaster's $16-million settlement with Trump over a deceptively edited interview with Kamala Harris as a “big, fat bribe.” With Paramount in the midst of acquiring Skydance Studios—a deal requiring Trump administration approval—Colbert's comments were seen as potentially harming that acquisition.
CBS's Financial Justification
CBS executives stated that ending The Late Show was “purely a financial decision against a challenging backdrop in late night” and was “not related in any way to the show’s performance, content or other matters happening at Paramount.” The network went further last week, releasing a statement confirming that Colbert's show was losing $40 million a year and that his successor, Byron Allen's Comics Unleashed, would turn a profit.
“We’re proud to partner with Byron Allen on a new business and programming model for late night that proactively addresses a network daypart that was cost-prohibitive to continue,” CBS said in the statement published by Deadline and The Daily Beast. “With this ‘time buy’ model, we have shifted an hour that was losing roughly $40 million annually to $15 million in profit — a $55-million swing.”
Kimmel Calls Cancellation 'Nonsensical'
Kimmel disputed those allegations when asked to comment on CBS's reported loss. “The idea that Stephen Colbert’s show was losing $40 million a year is beyond nonsensical,” Kimmel told Variety at the time. “There’s just not a snowball’s chance in hell that that’s anywhere near accurate.” He expanded on those comments, directing Vulture to a New York Times article claiming Colbert was offered a five-year contract but opted for a three-year deal in 2023. “Am I to believe that over the course of those two years, they suddenly started losing $40 million a year? These are just made-up numbers.”
Kimmel added that ABC has assured him his eponymous late-night show is profitable. “There are far more people watching late-night TV than there ever were, if you look at the number of views me and my colleagues get online every day and add in our linear-television ratings,” Kimmel said. “We’re not just dying of natural causes. We’re being poisoned.”
Trump Targeting Kimmel
Colbert was not the only late-night personality to persistently target Trump during his first and second presidencies—Kimmel was also a frequent critic. “I absolutely love that Colbert got fired,” Trump wrote on Truth Social after CBS announced the cancellation. “His talent was even less than his ratings. I hear Jimmy Kimmel is next. Has even less talent than Colbert.”
With Colbert's exit confirmed, Trump repeatedly tried to get ABC to pull the plug on Jimmy Kimmel Live!, most notably after comments Kimmel made following the assassination of conservative activist Charlie Kirk. “Why does ABC Fake News keep Jimmy Kimmel, a man with NO TALENT and VERY POOR TELEVISION RATINGS, on the air? Why do the TV Syndicates put up with it? Also, totally biased coverage. Get the bum off the air!!!” Trump wrote on Truth Social in November.
More recently, the two clashed again after Kimmel joked about Melania Trump having a “glow like an expectant widow,” two days before the White House Correspondents' dinner when an alleged assassination attempt was made on the president. “It was a very light roast joke about the fact that he’s almost 80 and she’s younger than I am,” said Kimmel. “It was not by any stretch of the definition a call to assassination, and they know that.”
Uncertain Future
Kimmel's contract is up at the end of the year, and he is unsure what lies ahead. “It’s important to me to be responsible,” he told Vulture. “I know I could go out in a blaze of glory and get a lot of applause for it, but it would be a very selfish thing to do.”
