Jimmy Kimmel's Wife Molly McNearney Reveals Tom Cruise & Rihanna Oscars Jokes You Didn't Hear!

There’s extra the place that got here from!

In the times following the star-studded ninety fifth Academy Awards, we nonetheless discover ourselves trying again on all of the goodies we have been blessed with… From Lady GaGa and Rihanna performances, to a brand new Little Mermaid trailer, to Everything Everywhere All at Once SWEEPING all of the awards… It was positively an evening to recollect — partly a credit score to Jimmy Kimmel hilariously — and effectively — internet hosting. But apparently, there have been TONS extra jokes that didn’t make the reduce of the three+ hour present!

Related: The BEST Of Jimmy’s Oscars 2023 Opening Monologue!

Jimmy Kimmel Live govt producer — and Jimmy’s spouse of 10 years — Molly McNearney informed Variety Monday that simply MINUTES earlier than the celebrated ceremony kicked off, a finalized model of the host’s monologue nonetheless hadn’t been set in stone… And Rihanna is the explanation why! She revealed:

“We had two versions of the monologue. One if Rihanna was in her seat, one if she was not in her seat. One if Rihanna had her baby on her lap, which she wanted to do. And one if her baby was not on her lap. A lot of our jokes were kind of at the mercy of people being in their seats.”

If you bear in mind, the present opened with Jimmy descending from the rafters in a parachute following his Top Gun: Maverick skit, and Molly recalled shouting him notes simply moments earlier than:

“As they were pulling Jimmy up on that harness for the open, we’re shouting up to him, ‘Rihanna is not in her seat! We’re going to adjust the prompter!’”

Really all the way down to the wire, LOLz! We can solely think about what he had in retailer for the Love on the Brain singer…

As for different particular shout-outs, the 45-year-old producer revealed that earlier than Tom Cruise formally made the decision to not attend, Kimmel had deliberate to dedicate an honest portion of his monologue to celebrating the star for serving to save the film business together with his 2022 blockbuster:

“Jimmy loves Tom. Tom had just been on the show the week before. And they talked about seeing each other and Jimmy was excited to tell him that we got real Navy pilots to do the flyover at the top of the Oscars. Jimmy was really disappointed he didn’t come.”

She continued:

“We had about a three minute chunk of the monologue dedicated to Tom Cruise, honoring him and his role in reviving the movie industry. We were so disappointed when we learned a few days before the Oscars that he wouldn’t be there. Jimmy loves him and really wanted to celebrate him.”

Other sources have claimed Tom didn’t attend the ceremony as a result of he needed to keep away from ex Nicole Kidman. But Variety hinted that Tom really pulled out as a result of he believed Judd Apatow, who beforehand roasted the Mission: Impossible star on the DGA Awards, was concerned in Jimmy’s monologue, however Molly desires to make it clear that wasn’t the case:

“Jimmy tends to send his monologue to a group of people he trusts, comedy writers and comedians. They don’t help with the monologue. They just tell him like that joke’s working, that joke’s not working. No, Judd was not writing or doing anything for the monologue.”

As for the heavy deal with jokes this 12 months over flashy pre-recorded productions or skits, the producer defined:

“We’ve put a ton of time and energy into these big produced bits, whether they be live, like we did with the movie theater break-in or the Hollywood tour bus that surprised people and brought them in. We’ve also done bigger pre-taped things like we’ve done with Matt Damon. We discovered that those are a ton of work and without a lot of payoff. So, we decided to stick with some simplicity, jokes and focus on the people in the room. I think it went well, but it was risky for us. Because we tend to lean on these bigger produced bits. But we just broke it down to the jokes. And we wrote, I think, 17 rounds of jokes. I mean, we have stacks and stacks of jokes that will never be seen.”

Ooh, we wish to see all of the stacks of ones they determined have been too harsh! LOLz! Molly added that the whittling down was much more difficult than you may suppose:

“You do have to cut jokes on movies that you don’t think the home audience has seen. We had a lot more jokes about Tár, we had some about To Leslie, we had jokes about all the movies, but it’s a real balance of making jokes about what that room has seen and what the home audience has seen. Thankfully, we had a Top Gun / Avatar year with the blockbuster movies. It’s really hard because jokes that would do really well with industry people, people at home don’t know what you’re talking about. You’ve got to try to please both audiences at the same time, which is a balancing act for sure.”

It all appeared to work out! We simply can’t cease fascinated about these additional Rihanna and Tom goodies, LOLz! Watch the total monologue (beneath):