Jimmy Kimmel Leaving Late Night To Focus On Son's Health Battle: REPORT

According to sources reporting on the matter this week, Jimmy Kimmel is eyeing his late night television exit amid plans to focus more fully on his son 7-year-old son Billy‘s battle against congenital heart defects.

Insiders speaking to Radar Online on Wednesday evening claimed that the Jimmy Kimmel Live! host is going to walk away from his late night TV post when his contract ends in 2025 so that he may spend more time with Billy, and with this wife Molly McNearney. As you may know, McNearney is the co-head writer for Jimmy Kimmel Live!, too, but sources say she would supposedly also leave the show with Jimmy.

Regarding Billy’s third open-heart surgery — which occurred last month, as revealed by Kimmel himself — sources asserted to that news outlet that Jimmy is supposedly planning his exit and is ready for a change. One insider claimed that the contract’s end in 2025 will be the point at which the late night star walks away:

“Jimmy and his wife are putting family above fame. With their financial future set, they’re ready to leave the limelight to focus on what really matters. Jimmy’s contract is up in 2025, and he has no plans to sign on again!”

Wow.

Regarding Billy’s heart surgeries and the way it has changed both Jimmy and Molly’s priorities, the source said:

“Life’s too short to waste on a job that no longer sparks joy.”

Well, that part is certainly true. But on the other hand, Kimmel’s publicist slammed the report already, saying it was “silly” to think Jimmy had discussed any potential show exit, “especially given his son’s recent surgery.” Denials aside, though, another spy doubled down with a claim that both Jimmy and his wife are supposedly ready to move on:

“Though they’ll likely stay busy producing and developing shows behind the scenes, their main focus will be spending precious time with their family!”

Obviously, time will tell whether that’s true or not, and 2025 is still a long way off. Regardless, as you may recall, Jimmy first opened up about Billy’s heart condition in 2017, not long after the child’s birth. Letting fans and viewers know what his family was going through at the time, Kimmel said on his show:

“They did an echocardiogram, which is a sonogram of the heart, and found that Billy was born with a heart disease. Something called tetralogy of Fallot with pulmonary atresia. Basically, the pulmonary valve was completely blocked, and he has a hole in the wall between the left and right sides of his heart.”

Billy’s first successful open-heart surgery happened when he was just three days old, with a second one taking place just a few months after that. Then, last month, Kimmel revealed that Billy had undergone his third — and what the family hoped would be his last — open-heart surgery procedure at Children’s Hospital Los Angeles. Kimmel took to Instagram in late May to reveal that news:

“This weekend, our boy Billy had his third (of three, we hope) open-heart surgery. We went into this experience with a lot of optimism and nearly as much fear and came out with a new valve inside a happy, healthy kid.”