Jimmy Kimmel won’t be going for a threepeat in hosting the Oscars next year, for one very simple reason — he doesn’t want to.
Appearing on a recent episode of “Politickin’,” an iHeartMedia podcast hosted by Gavin Newsom, Marshawn Lynch, and Doug Hendrickson, Kimmel explained that, after hosting in 2023 and 2024, he really just needs a break from the pressure and workload of the awards show.
“I just decided I didn’t want to deal with that this year. It was just too much last year,” Kimmel explained. “You wind up pushing everything off ’til after the Oscars, and then you have to do everything you promised to do after the Oscars, after the Oscars.”
Kimmel noted that this is the second time he’s hosted two Oscar ceremonies in a row — he previously hosted back-to-back in 2017 and 2018 — and has learned that, when he signs on to do so, he gets more frustrated by his regular “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” hosting duties.
“I’m not good at balancing. I’m really not. It’s not one of my strengths,” he said. “I’m all in when it comes to something like the Oscars. I think about it in the morning and at night, and when I have ideas, I want to work on them, and then my nightly show seems like a nuisance.”
He continued, “We have all our writers from the show working on the Oscars, so it distracts them. It’s fun to do, and it feels good when it went well, but, for me, just was too much, to do it three years in a row.”
And Kimmel isn’t the only one to turn down the job. In July, it was reported that comedian John Mulaney also declined hosting the 2025 ceremony.
At this point, no host has been officially announced.