Ben Affleck and Matt Damon Tried to Pay Jimmy Kimmel Live! Staff at Start of the Writers’ Strike

Even though Jimmy Kimmel and Matt Damon are mortal enemies, the latter didn’t want to see the staffers of the late-night host go without pay. At the onset of the Writers Guild of America strike, both Damon and his lifelong friend Ben Affleck offered to cover the salaries of Kimmel’s writing staff for one week each.

“Ben Affleck and the despicable Matt Damon contacted me and offered to pay our staff for two weeks,” Kimmel said during the latest episode of his Strike Force Five podcast. “A week each, they wanted to pay out of their own pockets our staff.”

Kimmel subsequently turned the offer down, suggesting it wasn’t the responsibility of the actors to pay his writers.

Is Jimmy Kimmel retiring?

It was in this same podcast episode Kimmel revealed he was planning to retire shortly before the strike, only the strike has made him realize how boring not being at work really is. 

“Are you guys getting stir-crazy? Are you ready to go back to work?” Kimmel asked his Strike Force Five co-hosts. “Because as you know, I was very intent on retiring right around the time where the strike started, and now I realize, like, ‘Oh, yeah, it’s kinda nice to work.’ You know, when you are working, you think about not working.”

Last September, Kimmel signed a three-year contract for Jimmy Kimmel Live!, a deal that would attach him to the show through 2025.

“For 20 years, Jimmy Kimmel has been a huge part of the ABC family and the heartbeat of late-night television,” Craig Erwich president, ABC Entertainment, Hulu & Disney Branded Television Streaming Originals, said in a statement announcing Kimmel’s renewal. “Not only has he entertained our audiences night after night with his sharp comedy, dynamic interviews and irreverent humor, but he has gotten us through some of the most momentous events in our history with optimism and heart. There is no one funnier and more authentic than Jimmy. We are so proud of the incredibly talented team at ‘Jimmy Kimmel Live!’ and could not be happier to continue our partnership.”

“I think I felt appreciated and that is important even if you have a job that people think of as a glamorous job,” Kimmel said in 2019 on the summer Television Critics Association press tour. “You still want to feel like your company is behind you and I do.”