In June, Jimmy Kimmel Live! made waves when Diego Luna guest hosted for a week and used the show to make a deeply personal and principled case for immigrant rights. With warmth, humor, and restraint, Luna called attention to the climate of fear surrounding ICE raids and deportations, all while representing the city of Los Angeles as a beacon of “generosity and openness.”
Last night, JKL handed the mic to another guest host—and Alan Cumming took that torch and ran with it.
Cumming, the Scottish-American actor and host of Peacock’s The Traitors, opened his Monday-night monologue with campy confidence, declaring himself “your traitorous host for the evening” and the first person to host JKL without ever having been invited as a guest. “It’s like giving a best man’s speech at a wedding I wasn’t invited to,” he joked, “but I’ll gladly shag the bridesmaids and the groomsmen!”
But Cumming’s monologue wasn’t all jokes. Like Luna before him, he turned his platform into a pointed sermon on behalf of a marginalized group—this time, the trans community.
“Just like superheroes,” Cumming said, “trans people are born with something special and magical about them,” launching into an impassioned and scathing critique of the Trump administration’s ongoing attacks on LGBTQ+ rights,highlighting rising hate crimes, discriminatory laws, and the absurdity of treating gender identity as a greater threat than gun violence or actual sexual predators. “There is no epidemic of attacks being committed by trans people,” he said, “but do you know how many people are killed every year by gun violence in this country? Over 46,000. And you’re worried about pronouns?”
Where Luna offered gentle defiance, Cumming delivered righteous fury—sprinkled, in this case, with a fair share of bawdy jokes and exhortation to target people who are truly dangerous, “like those who take their socks and shoes off on airplanes and then go to the bathrooms.”
Cumming closed his remarks by reminding viewers that despite ongoing government rollbacks, organizations like The Trevor Project, PFLAG National, and Trans Lifeline are still doing the work—and still need support. “Please call them if you need them,” he said, “and support them if you’re able.”
Comic Fortune Feimster is set to step in for Kimmel the rest of this week. Watch Cumming’s complete Jimmy Kimmel Live! monologue at the top of this post.
I want to be entertained, not lectured.
Well, grab your phone, go to onlyfans and then grab something else. You can likely entertain yourself that way.
Absolutely astounding in power and truth. Thank you Alan, and Jimmy.