Spencer Pratt is celebrating the prospect of Jimmy Kimmel Live! coming to an end after 24 years on air.
“Newsom and Kimmel gone next year?? Be still, my laughing heart! Things are looking UP fam,” the 2026 Los Angeles mayoral candidate, 43, wrote via X on Tuesday, September 8 — the same day reports of the late night show ending surfaced. (Gavin Newsom, 58, is the current governor of California.)
Despite Pratt’s elation, an ABC Entertainment spokesperson told Us on Tuesday that the reports were not factual. “This information is inaccurate — any reports about the future of the show at this point are purely speculative,” a statement shared with Us read.
Kimmel, 58, and the former reality TV star have been engaged in a public feud since May, when the former aired a monologue that criticized Pratt’s rise in popularity amid his mayoral campaign. (Pratt finished third in Los Angeles’ mayoral primary election in June.)
“You get a guy … whose profession is to be the screaming jerk on reality shows, and his house burns down,” Kimmel said during the May 27 episode of Jimmy Kimmel Live!. “So even though he had no private insurance on his house and doesn’t believe in climate change, he is understandably upset about his house burning down. And because he’s a moderately famous person he gets attention. For the first time in his life, people are agreeing with what he has to say. It’s hard not to agree with what he has to say. He’s angry about the same problems a lot of people here are angry about. Does he have solutions to those problems? No.”
At the time, Pratt clapped back by posting footage of his Pacific Palisades home being destroyed during Los Angeles’ 2025 wildfires. He swung back harder via X soon after, comparing Kimmel to Harvey Weinstein after Kimmel’s wife, Molly McNearney, spoke publicly about the couple’s romance blossoming when he was her boss. (McNearney, 48, works as a co-head writer and executive producer on Jimmy Kimmel Live! after rising through the show’s ranks.)
“Isn’t this what Harvey Weinstein did?” Pratt wrote via X on August 24 while sharing an article titled, “When Jimmy Kimmel’s wife knew he ‘wanted to f***’ during ‘bad idea’ romance: ‘He was my boss.’” (Weinstein, 74, who has been charged with multiple counts of rape and sexual assault, married his assistant Eve Chilton in 1987.)
McNearney recently discussed her thoughts on Kimmel retiring during an appearance on Dax Shepard’s “Armchair Expert” podcast. “It definitely appeals to me for the nervous system of the household,” she said on the August 24 episode.
She continued at the time, “I feel like Jimmy has a fly rod in one hand and a torch in the other right now. It’s like he deserves to go out there and just be on the river and relax, but I also want him to keep fighting. And I feel this sense of desire to not quit because I think what he’s doing is incredibly important right now. And yes, I know we’re doing it in a vacuum, but I think it’s giving people a feeling of, like, their voice is heard, and I think it’s important.”
McNearney concluded, however, that “as his wife, I really would like him to be able to not do the show anymore so he could relax.”
