Details You Didn't Know About Jimmy Kimmel's Marriage
Molly McNearney isn't just Jimmy Kimmel's wife. In fact, you can bet that Kimmel relied on McNearny's expertise while virtually hosting the 2020 Emmys, according to Deadline. What kind of expertise? You can thank McNearney, personally, for "Celebrities Read Mean Tweets" on "Jimmy Kimmel Live!" per Vanity Fair. The writer and actress usually just helps script and produce "Jimmy Kimmel Live!" But during the COVID quarantine, she also played cue-card holder, props master, graphics guy, hair, and makeup artist. "It would be time to shoot the show, and I'd say, 'Jimmy, do you even have an ironed shirt?' And then I would quickly find an iron, all while helping cover the bags under his eyes and pressing play on the ninth straight episode of 'PAW Patrol' to distract the kids," McNearney told InStyle.
"He says he's my 'husboss,' but I refuse to call him that," McNearney said, describing the pair's working relationship to Glamour, adding that when 10 a.m. hits "he's my boss, not my husband." McNearney and Kimmel make an undeniably endearing pair now. Their meet-cute, however, was less than charming.
When the "Jimmy Kimmel Live!" executive producer introduced McNearney as the new employee to Kimmel, McNearney says that Kimmel hardly acknowledged her. Then, the executive producer let on that McNearney did triathlons. "That is really stupid! What a waste of time," replied Kimmel. To be fair, when McNearney got the job she'd never seen the show. "I had no idea who Jimmy was," she admitted to Vanity Fair.
The famous couple met while still committed to someone else
McNearney and Kimmel definitely weren't love at "first sight." In fact, it took quite a while for the two to really notice each other. McNearney met Kimmel through her work as writer and later head writer on his show beginning in 2006, a position she kept and advanced with for 429 episodes through 2016 (Parade reports that she actually began as a writer's assistant in 2003). Beyond simply being coworkers, both McNearney and Kimmel were in different relationships.
While it's difficult to find much info about McNearney's past relationships, Kimmel's are quite public. The comedian dated Sarah Silverman from 2002 to 2009, per In Style. The relationship with his future-wife blossomed soon thereafter, but all remain friends in this scenario. After some reasonable time to heal, the exes share nothing but smiles. Jokes Silverman in a 2018 appearance on Kimmel's show, "I mean, OK, Molly's cute. She's bright, she's funny, she's blonde, whatever, but come on! It's not fair! She gets new, woke Jimmy, I had 'Man Show' Jimmy."
McNearney clearly agrees, sharing of Silverman, "...I am extremely thankful to Sarah because I think she did a lot of good for Jimmy. I don't think that when a romantic relationship ends, a friendship should have to end," per Glamour.
Talk about a storybook romance, or should we say ... monologue?
Jimmy Kimmel won Molly McNearney with food, lots of it
Molly McNearney wasn't always sure that things between her and Jimmy Kimmel would end in a happily ever after. "I remember telling Jimmy, 'If this doesn't work out, nothing in your life changes,'" she told The Hollywood Reporter, "but mine changes completely." McNearney and Kimmel started getting friendly around 2010, after spending more and more time socializing together with other writers after Kimmel's nighttime talk show ended according to Glamour.
But it took a home-cooked meal for McNearney to realize "how incredibly thoughtful and generous" Kimmel really was. One day, Jimmy asked his staff to name their five favorite foods, McNearney listed pizza, gnocchi pasta, a BLT, crab claws, and a cheeseburger. Chance question? We think not. Shortly thereafter, Kimmel invited McNearney over. "I was very nervous. I mean, this is my boss. I was thinking, I gotta be careful here," McNearney remembered. "He opens the door, and the whole house smelled delicious. I walked in, and there was a pizza, a BLT, crab claws, cheeseburger, and gnocchi. He had made them all from scratch. I couldn't believe it."
To this day, Kimmel enjoys cooking for his family. McNearney admits to throwing together instant oatmeal breakfasts for the two kids she shares with Kimmel. It's Kimmel that fires up the stove. McNearney told In Style that when Kimmel wakes up in the morning he "makes coffee for me, thank God ... and ... whips up these elaborate pancakes" for the kids.
Kimmel and McNearney's public parenting struggle
In April of 2017, McNearney and Kimmel welcomed their second child, William "Billy" Kimmel. McNearney describes to The Hollywood Reporter that about three hours after birth things seemed to change. Said McNearney, "Then a doctor I'd never seen before came in the room — and I knew. He sat down on the bed and put his hand on my knee, and I just burst into tears." The issue was that little Billy had a serious health issue, and at three days old the baby had open-heart surgery.
The couple chose to share their story live on Kimmel's namesake show, and a tearful Kimmel describes both his fear and his gratitude to medical providers during this scare time. McNearney expressed her admiration of Kimmel using their story to advocate for the health of many. Describing the experience, "We took a personal experience and we shared it with the world, and then it just so happened that this was going on while people were trying to take health care away from children like ours."
Little Billy is thriving now, but the health struggle still remains present in the minds of his loving parents. Sharee dad Kimmel in April 2022 on Instagram, "Happy 5th birthday to our little nut. We are eternally grateful to the brilliant doctors and nurses at @ChildrensLA & @CedarsSinai for saving Billy's life and to those of you whose donations, prayers and positive thoughts meant everything. Please support families who need medical care."
What's it like in Jimmy Kimmel and Molly McNearney's household?
When Molly McNearney married Jimmy Kimmel in 2013, she got Gabourey Sidibe (who you might remember from "Empire" or "American Horror Story") to prank walk down the aisle in her place. "No one knew, not even my parents," McNearney told Glamour, "I was standing waiting to go down the aisle, and then Gabby appeared. My mom and dad looked up, and my dad said, 'Oh no, someone double-booked!' She was just hilarious and so wonderful."
From what we can glean off of years of commentary on McNearney's Twitter feed, comic relief is a mainstay in their relationship. Bragging on March 6, 2020 the writer shared, "My husband just quickly pulled over for an ambulance and cursed at the cars that didn't and that's exactly why our marriage is still hot." Another example can be seen as Kimmel tweets that their daughter caught COVID in May of 2022 to which McNearney retweets, "She finally learned to share..."
Kimmel knows how to bite back. Remember that time that, while accompanying her friend Jennifer Anniston on her 50th birthday party, McNearney climbed on a plane that made an emergency landing after a tire popped? McNearney texted Kimmel what might have been their final goodbyes. Today reports that Kimmel texted back, "I just signed up for Tinder but I promise not to activate it until we know what's what."