Jimmy Kimmel says it’s fair to call him a hypocrite for ‘The Man Show,’ though it was ‘tongue-in-cheek’

Jimmy Kimmel has seen the jabs at him on social media after he makes a crack about President Donald Trump. The late-night host’s critics label him a hypocrite for the things he did as cohost of The Man Show, from 1999 to 2003, and he doesn’t disagree.

“Yeah, it’s fair game,” the Jimmy Kimmel Live! star told Rolling Stone in an interview published Tuesday. “I think it’s kind of funny, because the very people who are using those videos as an example of why I’m a horrible person were probably the biggest fans of the show at that time. We did the show a little tongue-in-cheek. I mean, if you really watch the show, we are making fun of ourselves through almost the whole show. It was not meant to be taken literally that men are superior to women, but for some people, it was.”

The crass Comedy Central series, which was cohosted by Adam Carolla, was full of misogyny, to the point where each episode ended with members of the show’s all-female Juggy Dance Squad jumping on trampolines.

“It was meant to be Homer Simpson-esque,” the late-night host said. “But you can pull things out of context and then they are taken literally. And that’s just how it goes.”

Kimmel didn’t realize, he said, that “what the show was really about was the friendship between me and Adam Carolla, the chemistry that was there.”

When asked by New York Magazine in October 2017 f he looked back at the show and cringed, Kimmel said he did.

“I look back at every show I’ve ever done and cringe. My vision of hell is a bunch of monitors with my old shows running on them. But yes, of course, and not necessarily for the reasons you think,” he said then. “I just think, ‘Oh, we could’ve done that better.’ It was a show people loved, and I got to work with Adam, which was a dream at the time, and we did a lot of funny stuff. We also did a lot of stupid stuff.”

The late-night host sounded more contrite in June 2020, when he apologized for doing blackface on The Man Show in an impression of retired NBA star Karl Malone.

He was asked by Rolling Stone about what is acceptable in comedy in 2025.

Sign up for Entertainment Weekly‘s free daily newsletter to get breaking TV news, exclusive first looks, recaps, reviews, interviews with your favorite stars, and more.

“I don’t put limits on what I laugh at,” Kimmel, 57, said. “But for me personally, as I’ve grown older, as I’ve matured, I won’t make a joke that I wouldn’t make if a person of that color or persuasion was in the room. That’s how I look at it. I think a lot of the outrage is completely manufactured, and it’s like, a lot of these people who are angry aren’t really angry. I think these liberals who’ve done such a good job of viciously attacking comedians are a big part of the reason why Trump is the president right now.”

He also said that he doesn’t think anyone should be tossed out of society for their jokes.

“I just think human beings in general, when you see something that makes you laugh and you see a bunch of other people laughing, and then somebody steps in with their arms folded and goes, ‘That’s not funny, and here’s why that’s not funny,’ it just doesn’t give you a good feeling about a person,” he said. “And you want to say to that person, ‘Lighten up.’ There’s no black and white when it comes to comedy. There is no line. The line is different for every person. Dave Chappelle can say things that somebody else might not be able to. I don’t think anybody should be canceled. I really don’t.”