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Why are we not surprised?
By Isaac Serna-Diez — Written on Sep 13, 2022
While Jimmy Kimmel's biggest issue right now may be the flak he's catching for lying on stage while Quinta Brunson was accepting an Emmy at this year's awards, it's not the first time the talk show host's behavior has been questioned.
In 2020, a former writer for talk show host, Jimmy Kimmel’s “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” decided to expose his negative experience work on the show.
While on the talk show, Kimmel can oftentimes seem forward-thinking and progressive in his stances, but the behind-the-scenes look at what he was like to work with completely changes that.
Jimmy Kimmel’s former writer called out sexist and homophobic behavior on the set of his talk show.
On March 9, 2020, Jack Allison launched a series of tweets that included personal emails and revealed the toxic workplace environment he was a part of.
It all started when former presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg was set to guest host “JKL!” with Kimmel.
“Maybe it’s finally time to talk about what went on behind the scenes at Jimmy Kimmel live,” wrote Allison. “For me it kinda feels like news if the gay presidential candidate hosts a show where the writers were saying ‘fa--ot’ openly in the writers room until they hired a gay writer. In 2015.”
Allison implies that many of the writers that were openly homophobic in the past remained as writers even during a time when Buttigieg was co-hosting the show.
“Anyway, I’ll be looking to talk to the press about this,” he continued. “I texted Jimmy about all this before posting. Oddly he did not deny that people say racial and homophobic slurs behind the scenes at JKL.”
However, the accusations didn’t stop there as Allison provided some insight as to some of the reasons he claims he quit the show.
“I had a mental breakdown at @JimmyKimmelLive and took one single day off for mental health,” he wrote. “Then I was ostracized for nearly a year before I quit.”
According to Allison, Kimmel told him that the reason he was being pushed out by his bosses, which included Kimmel’s wife, Molly McNearney, was because they didn’t believe him about his mental health.
To back up his claims, he posted the emails sent to him by Kimmel, and claimed that there was a “really dark, f--ked up culture at that show.”
“Some in the ranks were angry with you for using a depression as an exaggerated excuse to save your job and for taking advantage of my nature,” Kimmel claimed in the email.
“I looked at it differently — I assumed that you were embarrassed and chose to do that to save face.”
The writer also called out an alleged gender pay gap at Jimmy Kimmel Live.
This time, Kimmel had emailed him in order to discuss a pay raise that he received which left a female coworker being paid far less for the same work.
Allison told the female coworker about it, and Kimmel confronted him about it.
“When I gave you a raise and a good deal of praise and asked you to keep it between us, you did the opposite,” Kimmel emailed. “Not only did you violate my trust, you made others feel bad about themselves.”
Since then, Allison has deleted the Tweets and Kimmel hasn’t responded to the accusations.
Isaac Serna-Diez is an Assistant Editor who focuses on entertainment and news, social justice, and politics. Since graduating from Rutgers University, he spends most of his free time gaming or playing Quadball. Keep up with his rants about current events on his Twitter.