Jimmy Kimmel was overcome with emotion while addressing the Los Angeles wildfires.
The Jimmy Kimmel Live! host, 57, returned to his late-night ABC slot on Monday, January 13, and opened the show with an emotional monologue about the fires, which began earlier this month and continue to burn, decimating homes and displacing thousands of people.
“It’s been a very scary, very stressful, very strange week here in L.A., where we work, where we live, where our kids go to school,” Kimmel said. “We are back at our studio, which we had to evacuate.”
“That’s our building right there, the El Capitan,” he said, showing footage of a fire near the studio where the show is taped. “That’s how close this fire was to our theater here. Many of us had to leave our homes in a hurry. Some of our coworkers lost their homes. It’s been terrible.”
Kimmel continued, “Everyone who lives in this city knows someone — most of us, multiple people — families, friends, colleagues, neighbors, whose houses burned down. And the truth is we don’t even know if it’s over.”
Though the fires continue to ravage L.A., the comedian said he was heartened to see so many people coming together during the tragedy.
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“I think I speak for all of us when I say it has been a sickening, shocking, awful experience. But it has also been, in a lot of ways, a beautiful experience because once again we see our fellow men and women coming together to support each other,” he said. “People who lost their own homes were out volunteering in parking lots, helping others who lost theirs.”
Kimmel noted that his Jimmy Kimmel Live! sidekick, Guillermo Rodriguez, “almost had to come live with me” because he was at risk of being evacuated from his home.
The late-night talk show host said that, in total, he had nearly 20 people staying with him sheltering from the fires. (Kimmel and his wife Molly McNearney have two children, Jane, 10, and Billy, 7. He also shares two adult children, Katie, 33, and Kevin, 31, with ex-wife Gina Maddy.)
“We had 19 people living with us, and four dogs. It’s unlike anything I’ve ever experienced,” Kimmel said. “It’s so strange to look around your house and decide what you want to take, and then fight with your kids about what they want to take. We had to leave a lot of stuffed animals behind.”
