Zendaya may not have won her season of “Dancing With the Stars,” but Jimmy Kimmel definitely won pretty big because of her. In fact, the ABC host revealed to the actress on Thursday night’s episode of “Jimmy Kimmel Live” that he won somewhere in the realm of $12,000 betting on her during the competition.
The actress stopped by the late night show in support of her new film “Challengers,” in which she both stars and produces. While there, Kimmel took a moment to remind her — “as I do each time I see you” — that he bet and won “quite a bit of money” during her time on the show.
Zendaya immediately started to apologize to Kimmel, considering she finished in second place that season, but then he got a bit more specific.
“Can I tell you, I think I won $12,000,” the host admitted through giggles.
At that, the actress was stunned, but then quickly shot back: “Well then, you’re welcome!”
From there, the interview simply continued on, with no further mention of the host’s winnings. It’s unclear who Kimmel places his bets with, considering he is an ABC employee and the competition is an ABC show, but it’s something he’s apparently allowed to do, and in fact does every season.
Each year, on the first night of the new “Dancing With the Stars” season, Kimmel explains on his show that he’s picked who he thinks the winner will be, revealing that he puts down real money, and has won quite a bit over the years.
Back in 2017, the late night host revealed that he had correctly picked the winner exactly half of the time.
“I can’t fill out an NCAA bracket for the life of me, I got the Super Bowl wrong, but when it comes to ballroom dancing — and ‘The Bachelor,’ by the way — I am golden,” he said at the time.
You can watch Kimmel’s full interview with Zendaya in the video above.
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