Jimmy Kimmel’s wife Molly McNearney recalls the moment she knew he wanted to get intimate: ‘He was my boss’

Leigh BlickleyMon, August 24, 2026 at 7:25 PM UTC

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Jimmy Kimmel and Molly McNearneyCredit: Maya Dehlin Spach/WireImageKey Points -

Jimmy Kimmel and Molly McNearney talked about their relationship on Armchair Expert.

She shared how Kimmel wooed her during a night at his house.

The couple married in 2013 and share two kids.

Jimmy Kimmel and Molly McNearney are sharing the intimate details of their “meet-cute.”

The couple appeared on Dax Shepard’s Armchair Expert podcast Monday and opened up about when they realized their office friendship was turning romantic.

McNearney started working at Jimmy Kimmel Live in 2004, and eventually became the show’s co-head writer. Years into working there, she was in a staff meeting where someone asked what five foods everyone would eat for the rest of their lives.

“I just rattled off, ‘Pizza, gnocchi, crab claws, BLT, and chocolate chip cookies,” McNearney said.

About six months later, Kimmel proved he was listening during the meeting when he invited McNearney to his house.

“Talk about a long play,” she quipped on Armchair Expert. “I go to Jimmy’s house, he asks me to come over after work … and he opens up the door and it smells delicious and he’s like, ‘I made some things,’ and it was pizza and gnocchi, crab claws, chocolate chop cookies, and BLT.”

She continued, “He had remembered what my favorite foods were, and he made them all.”

Jimmy Kimmel and Molly McNearney on ‘Armchair Expert’Credit: Armchair Expert

When Shepard asked McNearney if she “immediately registered that as, ‘He wants to f---,’ she confidently answered, “Yesss.”

“It made me very excited and very nervous,” she said. “I remember thinking, ‘Oh, no. This is a bad idea.’ He was my boss.”

Kimmel said he “didn’t have that thought,” to which McNearney replied, “No, no, clearly. The person in power usually doesn’t. But I was very nervous about it. I thought it was a terrible idea and I was very skittish.”

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Kimmel joked that he told her “you eat this gnocchi and tell me you don’t want to do it” before they admitted to doing “a little bit of sneaking” to keep their romance private for a while.

“We were very, very quiet about it,” McNearney said. “I was very nervous about it, obviously, changing the work dynamic. I was in a room of mostly men and we had a great thing going on in that [writers’] room, and I didn’t want it to change. And, it did.”

She continued, “I just kept thinking, statistically, this is not going to work out and [his] life isn’t going to change but mine does. And that’s what freaked me out. Because I had worked really, really hard.”

Despite the worry, though, the pair eventually told co-workers and got married in July 2013. They have two kids, Jane, 12, and son Billy, 9. (Kimmel also shares daughter Catherine “Katie,” 34, and son Kevin, 32, from his first marriage to Gina Kimmel.)

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McNearney said she still “s---s on” Kimmel in the writers’ room but “sometimes I do find myself overcorrecting a little bit.”

Kimmel admitted he was drawn to McNearney as he got to know her while writing together for his show. “We got to know each other in a way you don’t usually get to know people at work,” he told Shepard.

Apparently, Kimmel never looked up from his desk to greet McNearney when they first met, so she was “intimidated by him” for years. But she quickly realized he was a great human and boss who took such good care of his family and staff.

“I really love this guy,” McNearney stated.

on Entertainment Weekly

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Source: “AOL Entertainment”