Jimmy Kimmel talks hosting the Oscars, the slap, and his bucket list interview

The Oscars are this Sunday and Jimmy Kimmel returns to host the award show for the third time. The last time Kimmel hosted the Oscars came when the La La Land and Moonlight controversy happened. To go down memory lane, La La Land was announced as the Best Picture winner, only to soon find out that the card was read wrong and Moonlight was the actual winner for Best Picture.

A mistake like that would for sure be remembered as a top controversial moment for the award show. Only would something like that be forgotten if an even bigger controversy happened at the same award show … such as Will Smith assaulting Chris Rock last year. After last year’s assault, the Moonlight/La La Land mishap seems like a long-forgotten tiny mistake.

Chris Rock was reportedly asked to host but declined. Understandably so. If I was assaulted at a party and the host didn’t do anything about it, I would definitely turn down the next invite to that host’s party.

With Chris Rock declining to host, Jimmy Kimmel returns to host the Oscars. To promote the award show, Kimmel was interviewed by Rolling Stone magazine. During the interview, he spoke about the slap and of course found a way to bring up every talk show host’s favorite subject: Trump.

"Rolling Stone: The Oscars handled The Slap quite poorly, which led to it becoming an even bigger thing. If Will Smith was ejected immediately, which he should have been at a minimum, I don’t think this thing would have dragged on for quite as long as it did.Kimmel: Yeah, maybe so. Maybe so. But this is a group of human beings running a television show, and as much as you can be prepared for, I don’t think this is something that anyone could imagine would happen. I’ve had this thought: I’ve been hosting these live award shows, and there’s very little protection as far as the stage goes. Anyone who’s in that building can walk right up onstage. I almost hesitate to say this because I don’t want to encourage people to do that, but there are going to be some dingbats in a room full of 3,500 people, and the fact that it hasn’t happened more surprises me. They were saying they “ran through a bunch of scenarios” and are “prepared for everything,” and I would have loved to have been in that meeting because I can’t imagine what those scenarios were."

When asked what he would do if someone rushed the stage at him, Kimmel responded, “well, I’m gonna have Guillermo there so I’ll be fine.”

‘The Slap’ still hangs over the Oscars as Jimmy Kimmel prepares to host again

“The Slap” was handled so poorly by the Academy Awards that it was shocking.  In a normal world, if you’re at an event and you assault someone, the normal thing to do would be to have that person removed from the event, apologize greatly, and have the person who committed the assault banned.

After discussing “The Slap” with Rolling Stone, Kimmel found a way to bring up the most talked about subject in late-night talk shows of the past 10 years.

"Rolling Stone: I know Jimmy Kimmel Live! takes up a lot of your time, but is there something you really want to do after? Anything on your bucket list?Kimmel: Yes, there is one thing on my bucket list that I want to do. It just popped into my head when you asked the question. I want to visit Donald Trump in prison and interview him from jail."

As much as talk show hosts seem to hate Trump and everything he stands for, they sure do love talking about him. Why? Because he provides them with consistent material. They don’t like him, but they love to profit off of him. Don’t be surprised to hear a Trump joke or two in Jimmy Kimmel’s Oscars monologue this Sunday.