Jimmy Kimmel’s Wife Molly McNearney Reveals How the Comedian Is Feeling After Becoming a First-Time Grandpa

The late-night show host’s wife is a mom to his two youngest children: son Billy, 8, and daughter Jane, 10

Jimmy Kimmel is excited to be a grandfather.

On Tuesday, May 20, the late-night talk show host’s wife, Molly McNearney, chatted with PEOPLE at the 50th Gracie Awards at the Beverly Wilshire Hotel, and opened up about how her husband, 57, feels to be a grandfather. She shares that Kimmel, whose daughter Katie, 33, recently welcomed a baby girl with husband Will Logsdon, is doing “great” and is “so excited” for this new chapter.

“He’s great. I think he feels nervous. All of a sudden, he has this new responsibility he’s so excited about,” she tells PEOPLE. “When his daughter told us she was pregnant, we both got in the car and we looked at each other, and he goes, ‘We’re going to be grandparents,’ and then he paused and he said, ‘with Invisalign,’ because we both have Invisalign.”

“I was like, ‘Oh no. I don’t think there are grandparents with Invisalign. We’re not going to get rid of the grandbaby, so we should probably get rid of the Invisalign,’ ” she recalls him joking.

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Jimmy Kimmel and his family.Jimmy Kimmel Instagram

When asked what parenting advice Kimmel has passed onto his daughter, the mom of two, 47, shared that the father-daughter duo have one common similarity that she is sure will be passed down to the little one.

“He and his daughter together, their very common similarity is how funny they both are, and I think that they kind of approach everything with laughter,” she says. “There’s no moment that’s too serious for them to make a joke in, and I imagine that will be passed down to her child as well.”

Kimmel is a father to four children. He and his first wife, Gina Maddy, share two adult children: son Kevin, 31, and daughter Katie. After their split, he wed for a second time in 2013 to McNearney, an executive producer and co-head writer on his talk show, Jimmy Kimmel Live!. The couple shares two children together: son Billy, 8, and daughter Jane, 10.

In 2022, Kimmel told PEOPLE that his younger children have him wrapped around their little fingers.

“They are very funny,” he said. “Well, they have no respect for me whatsoever. They make fun of me. They’re just goofballs.”

Jimmy Kimmel, screenwriter Molly McNearney and artist Katie Kimmel attend the opening of Consort on December 10, 2015 in Los Angeles, California.Donato Sardella/WireImage

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The Jimmy Kimmel Live! host first announced that he became a grandparent on Tuesday, May 20, during his talk show’s opening monologue. “The baby’s very healthy,” he said, before revealing his granddaughter’s name.

“Her name, they gave her a very cute name. Her name is Melania,” he joked, adding, “It’s Melania Thee Stallion…”

He went on to give his granddaughter’s real name: Patti Joan. The newborn’s first name is “like the melt, but with an ‘I’ not a ‘Y,’ ” Kimmel said, while her middle name, Joan, comes from his mother’s name.

At the Disney Upfront on Tuesday, May 13, Kimmel revealed that his daughter was pregnant and about to give birth to his first grandchild. “My daughter, my oldest daughter, is about to have a baby. I’m holding for applause,” Kimmel said in the pre-recorded sketch. “I assume I’m getting applause, applause, applause, thank you. I’m going to be a grandfather.”