Following his talk show’s near cancellation last month, Jimmy Kimmel revealed how Jon Stewart nearly landed his hosting gig.

The Jimmy Kimmel Live! host recently said ABC “should definitely hire Jon” after the network passed on Stewart, in favor of Kimmel, for the late-night talk show that premiered back in January 2003.

“They wanted a traditional late-night talk show in that slot,” he explained on the Where Everybody Knows Your Name podcast. “Jon and I have the same manager, James ‘Baby Doll’ Dixon, and James was about to close this deal for Jon to host the show.”

Kimmel added, “Lloyd [Braun, then ABC chairman] watched the tape and he was like, ‘I think this might be the guy.’ And he brought the tape to Bob Iger and Iger said, ‘Yeah, I think this might be the guy.'”

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