By Daily Mail (U.S.) | Created at 2026-06-21 06:02:15 | Updated at 2026-06-21 10:07:44
4 hours ago
Jelly Roll's new post-divorce career move has been unveiled, with news he will guest-host Jimmy Kimmel Live! while its star takes a two-month hiatus.
Kimmel announced Thursday that a rotating group of celebrities including Rosie O'Donnell will temporarily take over his late-night show while he is away.
'I will be taking the next two months off, this time voluntarily,' he joked on Thursday's episode, referring to when ABC briefly pulled his show in late 2025 over comments he made about Charlie Kirk's death that prompted the Trump administration's FCC chairman to publicly threaten a probe into the program.
'I asked one of our commander-in-chief’s all-time favorites, Rosie O’Donnell, to be here to keep the hits coming,' he said, eliciting laughter from the live audience.
The episode aired three days after news broke that Jelly Roll had filed for divorce from his wife Bunnie XO after a marriage of 10 years.
On the same evening Kimmel made his hiatus announcement, Bunnie released a tell-all podcast about her divorce and Jelly Roll then stopped his concert in upstate New York to tell his fans 'every word' of what she had said was 'the truth.'
Jelly Roll's new post-divorce career move has been unveiled, with news he will guest-host Jimmy Kimmel Live! while its star takes a two-month hiatus
Kimmel announced Thursday that a rotating group of celebrities including Rosie O'Donnell will temporarily take over his late-night show while he is away
In his speech, which he posted to Instagram, Jelly Roll affirmed his continuing 'love' for Bunnie and hailed her as 'my best friend forever.'
On her podcast, Bunnie had revealed she and Jelly Roll were 'still having a baby together' despite no longer being a couple, continuing a two-year IVF process that she said 'wrecked' her and left her a 'shell' of her former self.
She laid bare the dynamics of their relationship, saying she was the 'chaser' and he was the 'runner,' and that she always loved him 'a little more' than vice versa.
Bunnie candidly admitted to having a discomfiting relationship with fame, while her husband is 'the complete opposite' to the point she compared him to 'a politician.'
She also staunchly denied rumors of her infidelity with Nickelback frontman Chad Kroeger, who used to be married to Avril Lavigne.
Jelly Roll echoed her remarks onstage that night in upstate New York, assuring the live audience: 'Nobody cheated on nobody.'
He added: 'Bunnie, I love you, baby. Thank you for those 10 years. They were incredible. Thank you for the next 10 years of friendship and 20 beyond that.'
Meanwhile, on Kimmel's episode that night, he not only Jelly Roll and O'Donnell but also Colman Domingo, Anthony Anderson, Tiffany Haddish, and Ike Barinholtz among a 'potent group' of guest hosts.
Jimmy Kimmel has announced Jelly Roll and Rosie O'Donnell as two of multiple rotating hosts who will temporarily take over his late night show; pictured in December 2025
Kimmel regularly steps back from the show, which premiered in 2003, each summer.
Anderson has been his most frequent guest host, with 24 episodes under his belt.
Jelly Roll, real name Jason DeFord, previously filled Kimmel's hosting shoes for two episodes in July 2025.
It will be the first time O'Donnell, who recently moved to Ireland to escape the Trump administration, takes on the hosting gig.
O'Donnell and Trump, 80, have been embroiled in a bitter feud for the the last two decades.
Kimmel – another outspoken Trump critic – cracked during Thursday's show: 'All I ask in return, Mr. President, is that you don’t do anything stupid while I’m gone.'
O'Donnell and Trump's bad blood stretched back to a 2006 episode of The View, during which the entertainer called out the real estate mogul's failed marriages.
'Left the first wife, had an affair, left the second wife, had an affair. Had kids both times,' she listed during an episode at the time.
The feud rolled into the Republican's first presidential campaign, when he brought up O'Donnell during the Republican primary debates.
Asked about his tendency to use derogatory terms to describe women, Trump quipped, 'Only [when it came to] Rosie O'Donnell.'
The two have been at odds since.
'I asked one of our commander-in-chief’s all-time favorites, Rosie O’Donnell, to be here to keep the hits coming,' Kimmel quipped about President Donald Trump's most staunch critics; pictured on June 7
The 58-year-old media personality is planning a two-month break from his award-winning show Jimmy Kimmel Live; pictured with guest Jessica Williams on June 15
O'Donnell and President Donald Trump – who has pushed to have Kimmel's show taken off air – have been embroiled in a bitter feud for the the last two decades; pictured June 19
Last fall Jimmy Kimmel Live was suspended 'indefinitely' amid MAGA backlash over his comments regarding the death Kirk, a conservative activist.
Kirk was shot dead while debating students at Utah Valley University campus on Wednesday, September 10.
The suspected shooter is 23-year-old Tyler Robinson, who was raised in a Republican, gun-toting household.
Kimmel said during a subsequent opening monologue: 'We hit a new low over the weekend with the MAGA gang desperately trying to characterize this kid who murdered Charlie Kirk as anything other than one of them, and doing everything they can to score political points from it.'
He then showed a clip of President Trump bizarrely directing a reporter's attention to White House construction after being asked how he was doing in the wake of Kirk's death.
His show's suspension lasted a week, and his return saw his ratings triple and reach his largest audience in over a decade.
The dates for O'Donnell's first turn as a late-night host have yet to be announced. Only hosting dates for Haddish have been released, for the week of July 6, ABC said. Kimmel is slated to return the day after Labor Day.
