Everything Donald Trump has said about the Oscars as Jimmy Kimmel reads criticism live on air

The former US president claimed that Kimmel is ‘the worst host ever’ – echoing previous criticisms of the annual awards show

Donald Trump may have hit out at Jimmy Kimmel’s hosting of the Oscars, but he’s no stranger to lambasting the Academy Awards. In fact, Trump’s criticism of the show is something of an Oscar night tradition.

During tonight’s Oscars, which saw Oppenheimer and Poor Things dominate the wins, Kimmel read aloud a statement posted by Trump on his social media site Truth Social in which the former US president attacked the presenter’s hosting abilities.

“Has there EVER been a WORSE HOST than Jimmy Kimmel at The Oscars,” Trump wrote. “His opening was that of a less than average person trying too hard to be something which he is not, and never can be.” In response, Kimmel joked: “Isn’t it past your jail time?”

Unusually, this is not the first time Trump has gone after the Oscars. Or even the second or third time. In 2021, he claimed that “the Oscars” is “a far less important and elegant name” than “the Academy Awards”, and poked fun at the show’s declining ratings. “If they keep with the current ridiculous formula, it will only get worse – if that’s possible,” he wrote on Twitter.

In 2020, Trump became distracted during a rally and went on a rant about that year’s Best Picture prize being awarded to Bong Joon-ho’s celebrated class satire Parasite. “By the way, how bad were the Academy Awards this year, do you see?” Trump asked the crowd. “And the winner [was] a movie from South Korea. What the hell was all that about? We got enough problems with South Korea, on trade, and on top of it they give it the best movie of the year. Was it good?”

Then he complained that films were not as good as they used to be. “Can we get Gone with the Wind back, please? Sunset Boulevard! So many great movies.” He also added that he was not a fan of Brad Pitt, who won Best Supporting Actor that night for Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, dubbing him “a little wiseguy”.

Donald Trump at a campaign rally in March 2023, and Jimmy Kimmel at the Oscars (Getty Images)

In 2017, Trump – ever a pop-culture commentator – also commented on the snafu that briefly saw La La Land declared the Best Picture winner over Moonlight. “They were focused so hard on politics that they didn’t get the act together at the end,” he claimed to Breitbart News.

In Trump’s newest rant about the Academy Awards, he added that Kimmel should be replaced for future Oscar ceremonies by the US TV presenter George Stephanopoulos, who Trump dubbed “another washed up, but cheap, ABC ‘talent’.”

Trump followed up his host criticisms by condemning the Oscars as a whole. “Also a really bad politically correct show tonight, and for years – disjointed, boring, and very unfair. Why don’t they just give the Oscars to those that deserve them. Maybe that way their audience and TV ratings will come back from the depths. MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!”

This year’s Oscars saw Oppenheimer triumph in the Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor and Best Supporting Actor categories, while Emma Stone was awarded a surprise Best Actress Oscar for her performance in Poor Things – despite predictions that Killers of the Flower Moon’s Lily Gladstone would triumph.

Follow along with all the latest Oscar news from the ceremony in our live blog here.