Late night host Jimmy Kimmel got beaten to the punchline on Thursday night — by his own audience. Naturally, the ABC host was surprised, but also pretty amused.
The moment came as Kimmel discussed the ongoing sex trafficking trial against disgraced music mogul Sean “Diddy” Combs. The comedian noted that the proceedings are “crazy,” but even crazier are the sketches coming out of the courtroom.
“Why did we settle on sketch as the official courtroom art?” Kimmel wondered. “When I get locked up, I want to be sculpted.”
The late night host had a different suggestion for Combs, though. “They shouldn’t be making sketches of Diddy, they should be oil paintings,” he said. “Specifically…”
But, before he could finish, the audience audibly reacted — some groaning, some applauding and some doing both. Kimmel was visibly surprised and, realizing that they’d figured out the rest of the joke, cracked up.
“It’s not often that the entire audience predicts the punchline of a joke,” he marveled. “I don’t know if that’s good or bad, but I’m glad you had fun!”
As such, Kimmel didn’t bother delivering the final beat, but moved right along in his monologue.
If you’re wondering what the rest of the punchline was, we’ll note that, on Wednesday, George Kaplan, a former assistant to Combs, testified that he was tasked with clean-up duty for the rapper after his “freak-offs.” Among the things he had to clean up, he said, was baby oil. So, you can guess that Kimmel’s “oil paintings” joke was almost certainly headed there.
You can watch Jimmy Kimmel’s full monologue in the video above.
