Academy Awards host Jimmy Kimmel dished on the bare reality behind John Cena’s “nude” 2024 Oscars skit — and mentioned ABC execs had been “terrified” over the concept.
In his “Jimmy Kimmel Reside!” monologue Monday night time, the 96th Academy Awards grasp of ceremonies gave a autopsy on the earlier night time’s ceremony, wherein Cena, 46, memorably appeared onstage — with nothing however a strategically positioned envelope overlaying his penis — to current the award for Finest Costume.
It was an homage of types to the incident 50 years earlier, on the 1974 Oscars, when a unadorned streaker ran onto the stage behind David Niven on reside tv.
“Getting this on the air . . . of all of the instances I’ve hosted the Oscars or the Emmys or something, no comedy bit has ever acquired extra scrutiny than this,” Kimmel, 56, mentioned in his monologue.
“There have been conferences and website conferences, emails, and texts, and cellphone calls and other people sweating,” he continued. “Any individual was crying. Then as soon as they realized we weren’t going to take no for a solution … there have been intense discussions in regards to the dimension of the envelope …. whether or not we wanted to Velcro it to John’s physique and we needed to fill his crack and have socks … varied testicalia was mentioned.”
“They saved demanding we make the envelope larger and larger.”
Kimmel then flashed the much-larger envelope that ABC officers wished Cena to make use of (principally the dimensions of a field). However Kimmel and his workforce opted for the smaller envelope, which Cena held carefully to his physique so nothing could possibly be seen.
“I’d say congratulations, John Cena,” Kimmel mentioned. “The commotion you prompted. Very hardly ever does an thought actually push the envelope and this one did.”
He defined how they “taped every thing down” and glued every thing in place and mentioned that when it got here time for Cena to stroll out onstage, “the executives had been terrified.”
He then flashed to the famously intense picture of then-President Barack Obama and workers members and generals watching the killing of Osama Bin Laden in 2011 within the White Home State of affairs Room.
Kimmel additionally talked about that he was “tickled probably the most” by the best way presenter Arnold Schwarzenegger pronounced the phrase “Godzilla” — “it’s like half ‘Godzilla,’ half ‘lasagna,’ ” he mentioned — and that he loved Ryan Gosling’s megawatt efficiency of Barbie’s “I’m Simply Ken.”
Sunday’s Oscars snared 19.5 million viewers on ABC, up 4% from final yr (18.8 million). The ceremony began at 7 p.m., an hour sooner than standard, which could have helped seize extra eyeballs.
It was the most-watched awards ceremony since ABC’s protection of the 2020 Oscars.
The March 10 ceremony additionally generated probably the most on-line exercise for the night time, with practically 29 million social media interactions, based on ABC.