The Top-10 Jimmy Kimmel Live! Guest Hosts

It’s summah! Summertime means lots of things: tomatoes in season, chub rub, endless debates over what the song of the summer even is, and, of course, summer vacation. Right now, a majority of the late-night shows are taking advantage of the Paris Olympics and going on their summer holiday while attention is directed elsewhere. So this feels like a perfect time to talk about the one host with work-life balance and how he does it.

Jimmy Kimmel has been taking weeks off his nightly talk show since 2020. He had utilized guests hosts before, famously, when his son was born and needed immediate medical attention. But it seems like the pandemic really put things in perspective for Kimmel. First almost losing your son, then almost losing everyone else on the planet? Yeah, you’re going to learn how to stop and smell the flowers. Kimmel’s choice to take time off by getting guest hosts is actually a throwback to the Carson school of late-nightery. Before Jay Leno was the host of The Tonight Show, he was the resident guest host. But others had done it before him — most famously Joan Rivers, until that relationship broke bad.

Spreading the hosting love around is a magnanimous act. It means the hourly employees of Jimmy Kimmel Live! don’t have to go a week without a salary, and it diversifies the late-night landscape in a big way. It can be a test run for a real late-night show, something that ABC is one short on compared to NBC and CBS. Below, the top-ten Kimmel guest hosts, ranked by how badly I want them to have a show of their own.

10.

Arsenio Hall

Arsenio is coming in at No. 10 mainly because he already had a late-night show. (You did your time!) But seeing Hall take on our current (okay, 2021) moment was a delight. He slipped the late-night-host persona on like an old, extremely shoulder-padded suit, and good for him!

9.

Mayor Pete

Pete Buttigieg hosted Jimmy Kimmel Live! under extremely bizarre circumstances. He was the first pandemic guest host and did the show before the weird at-home era took hold. Mayor Pete hosted with a limited audience, told jokes to no one, and didn’t let it show how fucking weird/bad it feels to do that. Hey, as long as Chasten’s laughing.

8.

Kerry Washington

Speaking of pandemic hosts, Kerry Washington did an at-home guest-hosting gig. That’s insane! Something Washington does better than almost anyone else on this list is read the teleprompter in a way where her eyes are totally alive. She reads without it looking too read-y, and that’s a skill most nightly hosts don’t manage until, like, year three.

7.

Shaq

Shaq said if you don’t laugh at his jokes, he’ll beat you up. ’Nuff said; I’m laughing. Shaq’s general (get it?) takeover of all entertainment — commercials, Halloween haunts, EDM, and here in late night — is important and to be encouraged at every turn.

6.

Jennifer Lawrence

Poor J.Law got vaulted to a weird level of super-celebrity for being herself, then got demonized for being herself too hard. That was a freak move on the part of society, and she deserves her own talk show as an apology, if nothing else. But Lawrence’s turn hosting Jimmy Kimmel Live! did what Lawrence does best: talk shit about reality TV. Watch the above clip for her opening Q to Kim Kardashian. It’s wonderful.

5.

Martin Short

Martin Short had a banger run this year on Jimmy Kimmel Live! both as himself and Jiminy Glick. He’s only this far down on the list because his time is perhaps better spent doing Only Murders in the Building and (allegedly) loving on Meryl.

4.

Julie Bowen

Like Washington, Julie Bowen can read the teleprompter and make it look normal. Bowen brings a lot of personality to her guest-hosting spots, most notably when she kinda cougar’d up on Jacob Elordi. Having some “fun mom who’d rather you drink here than in some field” is an energy sorely missing in late night.

3.

Lamorne Morris

Speaking of skills people usually don’t pick up until several years into their late-night career, Lamorne Morris can make the “let’s segue into the agreed-upon talking points” thing look so slick. He’s great in monologue, super-great in interview.

2.

Nicole Byer

Much like Shaq, Nicole Byer should be even more everywhere than she already is. There is no level of ubiquity sufficient for her talent. Give her a show now, invite hot movie stars on that show, and let her proposition them sexually. It’s what the world needs.

1.

John Mulaney (and Andy Samberg)

(We’re going to be ignoring Andy Samberg in this ranking not because he was bad at hosting, but because he expressed total disinterest in doing any further hosting work.) This is beating an incredibly dead horse, but John Mulaney is good at hosting stuff. What he does perfectly, in an almost vaudevillian style, is hang a lampshade on the rougher edges of the format. The way he underscores “not in theaters” when he plugs Chip ’n Dale: Rescue Rangers, the shifting from teleprompter to question — every part of it feels like a machine he is acknowledging. He’s showing the seams of the genre, and it makes everything feel more immediate and fun. It’s a level of insincerity that is perfectly tailored to his comedic persona.

More From This Series

• Kieran Culkin’s Tonight Show Audition Won Late Night This Week
• Seth Meyers’s Stirred Manhattan Won Late Night This Week
• Jimmy Kimmel Vamping Won Late Night This Week

See All