Jimmy Kimmel Mentoring Late-Night Staff as Part of ‘Exit Plan’

Jimmy Kimmel could have bombed for some critics as host of this year’s Academy Awards, however he’s placing a constructive spin on all of it and specializing in his subsequent chapter — which is mentoring his on-air announcer and fast-emerging protégé Lou Wilson.

An insider near the Jimmy Kimmel Dwell! group solely tells Nearer, “Like different talk-show hosts, Jimmy used the pandemic years of 2020 and 2021 to shake up the group inside his present and herald new voices on the writing facet, together with comparatively unknown comedian Lou Wilson.”

Lou, 32, an actor and comic who grew up in California, now serves because the on-air announcer for ABC’s Jimmy Kimmel Dwell! after beginning as a author on the present in 2020. In response to his bio on the late-night program’s website, his “elevation to on-air announcer in 2022 got here as no shock to those that have had conversations interrupted by his booming voice.”

Nearer‘s supply says that Lou was “so spectacular together with his mostly-remote writing work” that he instantly caught the eye of Jimmy, 56, and wife Molly McNearney, who additionally works on the present.

Jimmy and Molly, 46, shortly “started speaking to Lou about transitioning from writing jokes for the sequence to really being on digicam and on air because the present’s announcer and much-needed contemporary blood within the sidekick division,” says the supply, including that Jimmy “personally undertook coaching Lou” for his new task.

And ABC seems to be all-in. “What’s encouraging is how supportive ABC has been of Jimmy’s out-of-the-blue choice,” says the insider. “Lou actually does come throughout just like the future of late-night in some methods, and he’s plugged into youth tradition and comedy not like anyone else on Jimmy’s workers.”

However with Lou rising by way of the ranks, it may sign the tip of an period with Jimmy in cost. “It’s additionally yet one more signal that Jimmy is devising his exit plan,” says a supply. “Legacy is vital to him. Jimmy is quick to acknowledge that he had sensible, even legendary mentors as he started his speak present profession greater than 20 years in the past: his idols Howard Stern and David Letterman had been rooting for him and all the time picked up the cellphone when he wanted recommendation.”

Lou has a powerful résumé, so it’s protected to say that late-night’s future could be in good palms. Previous to becoming a member of Jimmy Kimmel Dwell!, he wrote for Playboy and acted in a number of TV and movie tasks together with Netflix’s American Vandal and Judd Apatow‘s King of Staten Island.

“Jimmy simply loves the man and loves how he’s slotted into the present,” says the insider. “Individuals joke about Jimmy solely liking to rent members of the family to work in key roles on JKL!, however Lou Wilson resides proof that’s simply not the case.”