Donald Trump is keeping his Oscars feud with Jimmy Kimmel alive with a new post on Truth Social in which the former president once again slammed Kimmel for being a “horrendous” Academy Awards host. Trump then mixed up Kimmel with this year’s best picture presenter, Al Pacino. Trump’s diss arrived amid his hush money trial in New York City, for which Kimmel has been roasting Trump all week on his ABC late night show.
“Stupid Jimmy Kimmel, who still hasn’t recovered from his horrendous performance and big ratings drop as Host of The Academy Awards, especially when he showed he suffered from TDS, commonly known as TRUMP DERANGEMENT SYNDROME, to the entire World by reading on air my TRUTH about how bad a job he was doing that night, right before he stumbled through announcing the biggest award of all, ‘Picture of the Year,’” Trump posted. “It was a CLASSIC CHOKE, one of the biggest ever in show business, and to top it off, he forgot to say the famous and mandatory line, ‘AND THE WINNER IS.’ Instead he stammered around as he opened the envelope.”
Popular on Variety
“Supposedly his wife, and even management, begged him not to do it, ‘DON’T READ HIS TRUTH, JIMMY, PLEASE DON’T DO THIS,’ they said,” he continued. “He was made to look like a FOOL, which he is, and at the same time go down in Television History as the WORST HOST EVER OF THE ONCE VAUNTED ACADEMY AWARDS!”
Trump is referring to the end of the 2024 Oscars telecast, when Kimmel spontaneously decided to read aloud Trump’s real-time pan of the ceremony. “Well, thank you, President Trump,” Kimmel fired back live on the Oscars stage. “Thank you for watching, I’m surprised you’re still — isn’t it past your jail time?”
What Trump is incorrect about in his new post is that it was Al Pacino, not Kimmel, who presented the Oscar for best picture and confused viewers by saying “And my eyes see ‘Oppenheimer’” instead of the more traditional “And the Oscar goes to…” So while Trump may think that gaffe was one of the biggest “chokes” in showbiz history, that had nothing to do with the man he’s targeting in the post.
Trump doesn’t seem able to let Kimmel’s Oscars diss go. In an interview with Fox News following the Oscars ceremony, Trump bashed Kimmel as a “lousy host” and “not a talented guy.” Trump proceeded to say that Kimmel’s “ratings are terrible” for his ABC talk show.
“I guess I shouldn’t be surprised,” Kimmel then responded about Trump’s continued stewing over the Oscars diss. “Donald Trump has said I’m not talented so many times Eric is starting to get jealous.”
“But what he doesn’t realize is that I love this,” Kimmel continued at the time. “I love that this bothered him so much, I love that Fox picked a news guy nobody knows to interview him, and I especially love when he tries to spin the fact that everyone was laughing at him into a positive.”
Kimmel revealed the day after the Oscars that people told him not to read Trump’s rant about the Oscars onstage, but he refused to listen. Trump told Fox News that Kimmel is “dumber than I thought” because he made Trump go viral during the Oscars, saying “all he had to do was keep his mouth shut.”
Kimmel reacted by telling Trump that “you forget why it went viral all over the world,” pointing to Kimmel’s punchline that asked: “Isn’t it past your jail time?” Kimmel noted that clothing, mugs and more merchandise are now being sold on the internet with that anti-Trump catchphrase.
“But if only I’d kept my mouth shut,” Kimmel joked. “Imagine him telling anyone they should’ve kept their mouth shut. That should be on his tombstone: ‘Should’ve kept his mouth shut.’”