Jimmy Kimmel and Molly McNearney are used to feuding with President Trump at a very public level, but it’s still a rather fresh concept for their children.
While talking with Dax Shepard on the “Armchair Expert” podcast this week, the couple dove into the period last year when “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” got briefly pulled from the air. It proved to be a stressful moment, and explaining to their kids that Donald Trump hated their parents was equally uncomfortable.
“I believe it was Jane,” McNearney said. “We had to explain what was going on because there were helicopters and noise outside our house, and also they were still in school and this was becoming a very huge story. We didn’t know how big it would be, and we didn’t know if the kids were going to hear about it at school. So we said the show has been cancelled for a little bit. And Jane said, ‘Is this, is this Donald Trump’s fault?’ And we said yes.”
She added: “I said to Jimmy the other day, ‘What a wild childhood for these kids to know that the President of the United States doesn’t like their father.’ I mean, that’s not a great feeling, but it’s also kind of funny.”
Kimmel and McNearney share kids Jane and Billy (while the comedian is also dad to adult children Katie and Kevin from a prior marriage), who they say have never really known a normal presidency. What shocked Kimmel the most, however, was learning that 12-year-old daughter Jane was mostly upset because she assumed she’d be inheriting her parents’ ABC late night show one day.
“For whatever reason, she’s decided, even though she’s one of my four children, that she is taking over the show,” Kimmel said. “It was never a conversation even. It was just like, ‘Yeah, well, yeah, I will, of course, run the family business.’”
After being put back on the air last year, the president and First Lady called again for Kimmel to be pulled following the shooting during the White House Correspondents’ Dinner in April. He joked a week before the shooting attempt that Melania Trump had the “glow like an expectant widow.”
“When is ABC Fake News Network firing seriously unfunny Jimmy Kimmel, who incompetently presides over one of the Lowest Rated shows on Television? People are angry. It better be soon!!!,” Trump wrote on Truth Social at the time.
