The Oscars’ next host will sit down with its incumbent emcee during a historic late-night summit this week.
Conan O’Brien will guest on Jimmy Kimmel Live! Tuesday night, marking the first time he has ever appeared on the late-night show. While O’Brien has kept busy in his post-late-night career with a podcast network and a travel show, his ABC late-night debut comes as he gears up to host next weekend’s Academy Awards ceremony for the network. Jimmy Kimmel has hosted the Oscars four times in the past eight years, and turned down the gig this year before it was offered to O’Brien.
While the two hosts were sort-of competitors — Kimmel and O’Brien’s time slots never overlapped by more than a half-hour — they’ve only enjoyed a friendly relationship. In recent years, Kimmel has lobbied for O’Brien to win an Emmy, praised his selection as Oscars host, and appeared on Conan O’Brien Needs A Friend — where they discussed O’Brien once being floated as a replacement for Kimmel on ABC.
But more infamously, Kimmel was publicly “Team Coco” during O’Brien’s Tonight Show conflict with Jay Leno. As that controversy was ongoing, Kimmel mockingly hosted an episode of JKL in Leno cosplay and memorably cornered Leno during a remote appearance on The Jay Leno Show.
O’Brien’s retirement from late-night in 2021 also made Kimmel the de facto elder statesman of the genre. Having launched JKL 22 years ago, Kimmel is currently the longest-serving late-night host still on the air.
O’Brien will appear on JKL tomorrow night—Tuesday, February 25—at 11:35 PM ET. He’ll then host the Academy Awards on Sunday, March 2, at 7 PM ET.
