ABC almost hired Jon Stewart for Jimmy Kimmel's job

Stewart recently appeared on Jimmy Kimmel Live! joking about the lack of job stability in late night.

By Mary Kate Carr | October 23, 2025 | 9:38am

Screenshots: Jimmy Kimmel Live!; The Daily Show (YouTube)

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ABC almost hired Jon Stewart for Jimmy Kimmel's job

Can you imagine a universe where it was actually “Jon Stewart Live!“? Where it was Stewart, rather than Kimmel, who got pulled off the air at the behest of the government? (Actually, it’s pretty easy to imagine the government pushing Stewart off the air. That could still happen in our universe.) On Ted Danson’s podcast Where Everybody Knows Your Name (via The Daily Beast), Kimmel reveals that, when his show launched in 2003, ABC “wanted a traditional late-night talk show” in the time slot. At the time, Kimmel and Stewart’s mutual manager James “Baby Doll” Dixon “was about to close this deal for Jon to host the show.”

But ABC executive Michael Davies flagged Kimmel’s tape to the company’s chairman Lloyd Braun, who brought it to Bob Iger, and all of them agreed Kimmel “might be the guy.” That put Dixon “in the difficult position of having to tell Jon, ‘Uh, you’re not going to ABC, but Jimmy is going to ABC.'” Kimmel joked that it “was a mistake”: “They definitely should hire Jon. If I’m in that position, there’s no question I hire Jon 100 times out of a 100.”

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Stewart doesn’t seem to have held a grudge. Earlier this month, he appeared on Kimmel’s New York shows, jokingly calling the host “Mr. Free Speech” and pretending to be driving Grubhub on the side. “In case you haven’t heard the news: late-night talk show host, the job security’s not really there right now,” he cracked. Stewart only left the stage after giving Kimmel a hug and telling him “I love you.”

So, the hiring drama of two decades ago has not ruined their relationship. And after all, the job didn’t come down to talent so much as economics, Kimmel said. He recalled asking Iger about the hiring process later. “I said, ‘What was it, like why—this is quite a leap that you guys made. I was on The Man Show, I was doing football picks on Fox NFL Sunday—what was it?'” Kimmel remembered. “He goes, ‘Well, you were cheaper.’ And everybody laughed, but I knew he wasn’t kidding.”