Jimmy Kimmel went from interviewer to interviewee when he stopped by Watch What Happens Live With Andy Cohen on Monday, January 21, fielding questions about his high-profile feuds, his diva-like talk show guests and his friendship with ex Sarah Silverman.
“I would say that it took some time, definitely,” the 51-year-old said of mending fences with Silverman, 48, after their six-year relationship ended in 2009. “It was never like where we didn’t like each other, hated each other or anything like that. But it definitely took some time to be comfortable enough to be friends again.”
Kimmel also addressed some of his recent beefs with fellow celebrities. “All my feuds get nasty,” he told host Andy Cohen. “I think it’s me. I think I’m the common denominator.”
His feud with Kanye West, for example, started after he mocked the 41-year-old rapper’s infamous, wide-ranging 2013 BBC Radio 1 interview. But that discord “ended up being fine,” Kimmel said on Monday. “I like Kanye a lot.”
In fact, the comedian hosted West on his show in August 2018, though he could hardly get a word in edgewise. Kimmel reflected on that interview on Monday, saying, “You know what was going through my head? ‘We’ve got some commercials we need to run, and he’s never going to stop talking.’”
While on the topic of onetime adversaries, Kimmel gave props to former Tonight Show host Jay Leno, who once called out Kimmel’s “mean-based humor” but later reached out when Kimmel’s son Billy, 21 months, underwent heart surgery in 2017. “He called me,” Kimmel told Cohen. “He was very nice. And I was like, ‘What am I, a child? Why am I going on with these things?’”
The two-time Oscar host also dished on Barbra Streisand, saying the 76-year-old singer once canceled a planned appearance on Jimmy Kimmel Live! when he refused to reverse the set so the cameras could capture her better angle. “The condition was we couldn’t talk about the fact that we’d switched around and I was like, ‘I just don’t see how this will work,’” Kimmel recalled with a laugh.
Kimmel has been married to TV writer Molly McNearney since 2013. They have two kids together: Billy and older sister Jane, 4. The former Man Show cohost also has two children with first wife Gina Maddy Kimmel: daughter Katie, 27, and son Kevin, 25.
Watch What Happens Live With Andy Cohen airs on Bravo Sundays through Thursdays at 11 p.m. ET.
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