Jimmy Kimmel could have had a ringside seat for Donald Trump’s White House UFC fight. He just passed on the invitation.
Kimmel revealed on Jimmy Kimmel Live! Tuesday night hat he was invited to UFC Freedom 250, the June 14 fight card staged on the White House South Lawn on Flag Day and Trump’s 80th birthday.
The revelation came during Kimmel’s conversation with the four hosts of Pod Save America, after co-host Jon Favreau shared his own invitation story.
“I got invited to the White House UFC fight because they thought I was the other Jon Favreau,” Favreau said, referring to the filmmaker and actor who shares his name.
“Is that true?” Kimmel asked.
“Yes,” Favreau replied. “I don’t know why he was getting an invitation.”
“Well, I’m gonna tell you something,” Kimmel said. “I also got invited to that event.”
“You did?” Favreau responded.
“I obviously declined the invitation,” Kimmel said. “I don’t think they were confusing me with another Jimmy Kimmel. The only other Jimmy Kimmel is my father, and I know they didn’t invite him.”
Neither Kimmel nor Favreau appeared to know who had invited them, and there’s no indication that either invitation came directly from Trump.
Tickets for the roughly 4,300-seat event were distributed through several channels. Trump reportedly controlled 1,000 tickets, while UFC chief Dana White and TKO Group CEO Ari Emanuel each had 200 to distribute. Other seats were set aside for military members and invited guests.
Among the celebrities and media figures who did attend were comedians Shane Gillis, Tony Hinchcliffe, and Nate Bargatze, along with Joe Rogan, Zac Brown, Mark Zuckerberg, and David Ellison.
When he covered the event on Jimmy Kimmel Live! afterwards, Kimmel did not appear to be sorry to have missed it.
“UFC Freedom 250 had all the refinement and prestige as a Hooters at the Vatican,” Kimmel joked during his June 15 monologue.
He also mocked the thousands of guests crowding the White House grounds, fighters using rooms inside the executive mansion to prepare, and Trump appearing to doze off during the event.
After airing footage of one fighter shouting from the Truman Balcony, Kimmel summed up the scene this way: “What a night. Like a mini January 6th.”
Kimmel’s conversation with the Pod Save America hosts came during the show’s midterm election night broadcast, as the scale of the Democrats’ gains was coming into focus—and after Kimmel delivered a stinging monologue about the results.
