Fans of the recent and contentious Jimmy Kimmel and Aaron Rodgers feud were tuning into the 2024 Oscars on Sunday to see if Kimmel would poke the Jet and renew their beef, but it seems Jimmy didn't take the bait.
Instead, Kimmel went a classier route and issued a heartfelt thank you and praise of the various Hollywood labor unions that stood strong with the WGA and SAG during the writers' and actors' strikes last year.
He chose the high road and ignored Aaron Rodgers, which may have been the best way to throw some shade at the quarterback of all. Rodgers has seemed particularly thirsty for the spotlight in the past year — with his scene hogging on Hard Knocks, his incessant appearances on the grating Pat McAfee show, and his seeming jealousy toward Travis Kelce for all the media attention bestowed on him this past season (and of course for being proudly vaccinated against Covid-19).
In choosing to go high instead of low, Kimmel got generally high marks from critics and praise for keeping the 2024 Oscars telecast in largely good taste. During his impassioned thank you to the below-the-line Hollywood unions that refused to cross the picket lines during the writers' and actors' strikes, Kimmel did joke in his opening monologue that “this very strange town of ours is, at heart, a union town; it’s not just a bunch of heavily Botoxed Hailey Bieber-smoothie-drinking, diabetes prescription-abusing, gluten-sensitive nepo babies with perpetually shivering chihuahuas.”
He continued, “This is a coalition of strong, hardworking, mentally tough American laborers, women and men who, 100% for sure, would die if they even had to touch the handle of a shovel.”
His signature mix of wit and heart then crescendoed with him bringing out various behind-the-scenes Hollywood laborers on stage and promising that the WGA and SAG would have the backs of their respective unions in their upcoming labor negotiations.
If Aaron Rodgers was on the edge of his seat all night as he watched Jimmy Kimmel waiting for his name to be called, he was out of luck — but then again, so were all but one of the nominees in every Oscars category, so Rodgers had plenty of company.
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