Jimmy Kimmel’s Wife Reveals Drama With MAGA Family Members
“They are deliberately being misinformed every day and they believe it,” Molly McNearney said.
Some of Jimmy Kimmel’s in-laws are definitely not fans of his anti-Trump late night show.
Kimmel’s wife of 12 years Molly McNearney, who also executive produces Jimmy Kimmel Live, has said she’s had to cut ties with family over their support of Donald Trump.
“To me, them voting for Trump is them not voting for my husband and me, and our family. And I unfortunately have kind of lost relationships with people in my family because of it,” she told the We Can Do Hard Things podcast. “It hurts me so much because of the personal relationship I now have, where my husband is out there fighting this man.”

“To me, them voting for Trump is them not voting for my husband and me, and our family," Molly McNearney said about her MAGA family members.
Randy Holmes/Disney via Getty Images
McNearney, 47, grew up in a “very conservative Republican House,” she told the show’s hosts. “I mean, I bought my dad a Rush Limbaugh tie in high school.” But as her political affiliations changed, McNearney said family ties became strained.
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“I voted Republican straight ticket and that’s what I was told to do,” she explained, “and then I left St. Louis, Missouri, and I met people from different backgrounds and I started to understand different things and different needs and different people.”
Much of her family has not had the same change of heart, however.
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“There’s a little bit of sympathy I have for people in my family that I feel are being deliberately misinformed every day, and they believe it,” she said. Despite her sympathy, McNearney said she gets “angry” with those family members.
“This is not just Republican versus Democrat for me anymore,” she said. “To me, it’s family values and it’s really hard for me because I grew up believing in these Christian ideals of taking care of the sick and taking care of the poor, and I don’t see that happening with this Republican party. I feel like I’m in constant conflict and I’m angry all the time, which isn’t healthy at all. But I personalize everything now.

McNearney said she cut ties with MAGA family members because “This is not just Republican versus Democrat for me anymore. To me, it’s family values."
JC Olivera/Variety via Getty Images
“When I see these terrible stories every day, I’m immediately mad at certain aunts, uncles, cousins, who put him in power. And it’s really hard. I wish I could deprogram myself in some way, but I get really angry,” she added.
McNearney said that ahead of the 2024 election, she went so far as to send her pro-Trump family emails with “10 reasons not to vote for this guy. Please don’t.”
“I either got ignored by 90 percent of them, or got truly insane responses from a few. It’s definitely caused a strain,” she admitted.
McNearney said that it sometimes feels “silly” to let politics sour her relationship with her family. “I hate that this has happened,” she said. “Part of me goes, ‘Don’t let politics get in the way.’ But to me, this isn’t politics, it’s truly values. And we just were not aligned anymore.”
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