Jimmy Kimmel you register Rosie O'Donnell to host his ABC talk show Jimmy Kimmel Live! as a “special administration” to the President Donald Trump.
“I'm going to take a break for the next two months — this time voluntarily,” Kimmel, 58, joked during a private interview on Thursday, June 18.
The comedian was speaking about being suspended in September 2025 by the ABC to comment on the political fallout over the Conservative murder. Charlie Kirk. (Trump has repeatedly called for ABC to fire Kimmel, but the network extended his contract by one year following the scandal.)
When Kimmel took a break from late night television, Jimmy Kimmel Live! will continue with celebrity guest hosts throughout the summer.
“We put together a team of program managers to fill in for me, and let's start Tiffany Haddish, Colman Domingo, Ike Barinholtz, Anthony Anderson, Jelly Roll,” he revealed to viewers.
Kimmel chose one guest host in particular for the president, revealing, “As a special treat for our main host, I asked one of his all-time favorites, Rosie O'Donnell, to be here to keep the hits coming. So, you're welcome!”
“All I ask, Mr. President, is that you don't do anything stupid while I'm gone,” Kimmel said with a laugh.
A spokesman for O'Donnell, 64, later confirmed to the media that he would be in charge for the rest of the week. Jimmy Kimmel Live! episodes starting Monday, August 17.
O'Donnell shared Kimmel's announcement via Instagram on Friday, June 19, adding in the caption, “And I can't wait!!!”
Jimmy Kimmel; Rosie O'Donnell; Donald Trump
Getty Images (3); Kevin Winter; Jamie McCarthy; Dimitrios KambourisBoth Kimmel and O'Donnell have frequently left out Trump, 80, over the years. Following Trump's second presidential victory, O'Donnell moved to Ireland and began the process of obtaining Irish citizenship. (Trump has threatened to revoke O'Donnell's U.S. citizenship multiple times, though it's unclear whether he has the legal authority to follow through.)
O'Donnell recently returned to the US to perform his solo show on stage General Information at the Daryl Roth Theater in New York City this summer. Earlier this month, he criticized Trump supporters as “racist, homophobic.” [and] un-American” for continuing to support him.
Although the comic will definitely return to TV Jimmy Kimmel Live! in August, he said Andy Cohen to Watch What Happens Live With Andy Cohen that there are no plans for him to return to where he stepped Watching as a guest panelist.
Rosie O'Donnell revealed that she went to the United States secretly after leaving the country during Donald Trump's second term as president. “I've been home for two weeks recently and I haven't told anybody,” O'Donnell, 63, said after a call to SiriusXM's Cuomo Mornings on Friday, February 13. “I just visited my family. […]
“I was going to welcome a guest, but they haven't asked me yet. So we'll see what happens,” he said on Thursday, June 18.
O'Donnell hosts his own daytime talk show The Rosie O'Donnell Show — which won five Daytime Emmy Awards for Outstanding Talk Show— from 1996 to 2002. Later he held a temporary ceremony. The Rosie Show from 2011 to 2012.
Jimmy Kimmel Live! airs weekdays on ABC at 11:35 pm ET.
