Jimmy Kimmel to end show on Trump's Inauguration Day? No, that's satire | Fact check
The claim: Jimmy Kimmel announced his show will end on day of Trump’s inauguration
A Dec. 3 Instagram post (direct link, archive link) shows a screenshot of an X post about talk show host Jimmy Kimmel's purported 2025 plans.
“Breaking: Jimmy Kimmel Announces His Show Will End on January 20th, Declaring, ‘I’m Leaving for Canada and Never Coming Back,’” reads the text in the X post.
The Instagram post received more than 40,000 likes in a week. Other versions of the claim circulated on Threads and on Facebook.
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Our rating: False
The claim originated on an account that shares satirical content but was not presented that way in the Instagram post. There is no record of any announcement about Kimmel ending his show in January 2025.
Claim originated on satirical account
Kimmel, who has frequently criticized President-elect Donald Trump, fought back tears during the “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” episode that aired a day after Trump's victory in the Nov. 5 election, calling it a “terrible night.” But the late-night host did not say the final broadcast of his show would air Jan. 20 – the day of Trump’s inauguration.
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There have been no announcements about the show ending in January 2025 from ABC or from Kimmel on his social media accounts. In a comedy sketch in his Nov. 6 show, Kimmel says he is "leaving the country," before he changes his mind and says: "I need to stay here. We have unfinished business." There are no credible news reports that Kimmel made any serious statement about relocating to Canada.
Kimmel signed a three-year contract extension in 2022 that will keep him with the show into the 2025-26 season, and there have been no credible reports of any changes to this deal.
Two satirical Facebook accounts posted similar versions of the Instagram claim within an hour of each other Nov. 10. America’s Last Line of Defense, which shared the post, states in its bio that “nothing on this page is real.” The other account that shared it, SpaceX Fanclub, makes a similar declaration in its intro section and includes a label in the post's image that identifies it as satirical. The version shared on Instagram, however, contains no such label.
It is an example of what could be called “stolen satire,” in which content originally written and presented as parody is captured and reposted in a way that makes it appear authentic. As a result, readers of the second-generation post are misled, which is what happened here.
Paste BN previously debunked stolen satire claims that Musk took over MSNBC and that Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas announced he will retire in January.
Paste BN reached out to several social media users who shared the claim but did not immediately receive any responses.
Lead Stories also debunked the claim.
Our fact-check sources
- ABC Entertainment, accessed Dec. 9, Releases
- Jimmy Kimmel, accessed Dec. 9, Instagram account
- Jimmy Kimmel, accessed Dec. 9, Facebook account
- Jimmy Kimmel, accessed Dec. 9, X account
- Deadline, Sept. 20, 2022, Jimmy Kimmel Signs Three-Year Extension With ABC, Ending Speculation Over His Late-Night Future
- The Associated Press, Sept. 20, 2022, Jimmy Kimmel signs 3-year extension for ABC late-night show
- SpaceX Fanclub, Nov. 10, Facebook post
- SpaceX Fanclub, accessed Dec. 9, Facebook account
- America’s Last Line of Defense, Nov. 10, Facebook post
- America’s Last Line of Defense, accessed Dec. 9, Facebook account
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