Jimmy Kimmel Really Wanted Ted Cruz To ‘Throw Up’ During Their Televised Basketball Game

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During a podcast interview, Jimmy Kimmel shed new light on his 2018 charity basketball game against Sen. Ted Cruz. The talk show host opened up about what it was like playing one-on-one with the Texas senator, and explained that he accepted the challenge mostly because he wanted the politician to “throw up on television.”

Cruz challenged Kimmel to a one-on-one basketball game in June 2018 after the late-night host joked during one of his monologues that the Texas senator looked “like a blobfish.”

This led to the “Blobfish Basketball Classic,” a charity match that took place at Texas Southern University. Cruz beat the Jimmy Kimmel Live host 11-9 during a game that was filled with back-and-forth jabs, but the rivals raised more than $80,000 for two separate children’s charities.

On the latest episode of the Jason Bateman, Sean Hayes and Will Arnett-hosted podcast SmartLess, Kimmel revisited his match against Cruz, noting that he believes the Republican senator played a bit dirty.

“The mistake that I made was having no fouls,” said Kimmel. “We decided there would be no fouls called because in my head I was imagining him calling fouls on everything and it just being boring and going on forever.”

The talk show host continued, “I thought we would play in a reasonable way, but I should have known that Ted Cruz was not going to play in a normal way because he doesn’t do anything normal. He would put me in a bear hug while we were dribbling.”

Kimmel went on to say that Cruz was a “nice enough guy,” adding, “We raised money for charity and the whole thing was a positive overall, but I would’ve liked to have won that game and I was ashamed at myself. I made the mistake of really trying to become a good basketball player the week before the game. When I got there I already was in bad shape physically and when I left there I was in worse shape physically.”

As for the real motive behind accepting Cruz’s challenge, Kimmel said, “The reason that I did it is because – obviously I wanted to win and I knew that was unlikely and that Ted Cruz had a big lead — but somewhere in the back of my head I thought, ‘If I can get him to throw up on television during this game, this is going to be a devastating visual and perhaps it is just the Hail Mary that we need to win that [senate] seat [in Texas].'”

Celebrities have been known to get political on the SmartLess podcast. On last week’s episode, Maya Rudolph opened up about her impression of Kamala Harris on Saturday Night Live, bashing the current administration in the process. A few weeks ago, Harris herself was interviewed on the show.

Listen below to Kimmel’s full appearance on the latest SmartLess podcast. His comments about Cruz begin at the 37-minute mark.