Howard Stern put Jimmy Kimmel in the hot seat on his eponymous radio show Monday.
After going on vacation with Kimmel, the veteran disc jockey — who later returned the favor, appearing on Jimmy Kimmel Live!’s Brooklyn run Tuesday — seemed convinced that Kimmel’s friendship with fellow late night host Jimmy Fallon was not genuine.
“I’m gonna be honest,” Stern said. “We went away this summer, and you were kind enough to invite me. And I went there with Jimmy Fallon. It’s this whole thing, ‘Oh, the two Jimmys love each other.’ I wish you would just come clean.
“You don’t enjoy being around Jimmy Fallon. And watching it is too f***ing funny,” he said provocatively.
Kimmel, who seemed taken aback by the accusation, responded: “Let me tell you a couple of things. First of all, I don’t know how I defend myself in this, but I’m going to attempt to. First of all, I cannot imagine anyone not having fun hanging around with Jimmy Fallon, because Jimmy Fallon, as you know, is a lot of fun.”
Kimmel continued, “But secondly, do you think that I have so much free time in my life and so much open space in my life that I would spend—I’m going to dinner with Jimmy Fallon this week, as a matter of fact while I’m here—that I would waste that time maintaining a pretend friendship for no reason whatsoever?”
Stern replied, “It’s not pretend. I think you desperately need to prove that, ‘Oh, we can all get along.’”
Kimmel asked, incredulously, “To who? Who am I proving this to?”
“I don’t know, to the world,” Stern said. Kimmel added, “I didn’t even know you’re watching us. Now that I know you’re watching us, I’m gonna be self-conscious of that.”
Fallon and Kimmel’s friendship does go way back. In 2013, when Fallon was announced as Jay Leno’s successor on The Tonight Show, Kimmel publicly congratulated him, jokingly calling him a “formidable rival” and an “incredible lover.”
At that year’s Time 100 gala, Kimmel said, “We’re very friendly” and joked that they were “like Peaches & Herb.”
“I know people expect us to dislike each other and say bad things about each other, but that will never happen,” he added.
LateNighter reports that Stern even had a hand in bringing the two hosts closer together. According to the publication, Stern learned in 2017 that Kimmel and Fallon emailed occasionally but didn’t really socialize, so he arranged for them to have dinner together.
Fallon, meanwhile, has publicly supported Kimmel, including after ABC suspended Jimmy Kimmel Live! last September amid threats from President Donald Trump and the FCC. “I do know Jimmy Kimmel, and he’s a decent, funny, and loving guy, and I hope he comes back,” Fallon said on his show at the time.
