After being indefinitely suspended last week, Jimmy Kimmel’s late-night show will return to Disney-owned ABC’s airwaves on Tuesday night, Disney announced on Monday.
“Jimmy Kimmel Live!” was suspended last week following controversial comments Kimmel made about the assassination of conservative activist Charlie Kirk.
Less than a week after the cancellation, the Walt Disney Company released a statement that “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” would be back on the air:
“Last Wednesday, we made the decision to suspend production on the show to avoid further inflaming a tense situation at an emotional moment for our country. It is a decision we made because we felt some of the comments were ill-timed and thus insensitive. We have spent the last days having thoughtful conversations with Jimmy, and after those conversations, we reached the decision to return the show on Tuesday.”
What Jimmy Kimmel said
Last Tuesday, Kimmel said, “We hit some new lows over the weekend with the MAGA gang desperately trying to characterize this kid who murdered Charlie Kirk as anything other than one of them and doing everything they can to score political points from it.”
However, charging documents by the Utah County Attorney’s Office, released on the same day Kimmel’s show aired, paint a different picture of the 22-year-old alleged assassin, Tyler Robinson, who was described as starting to “lean more to the left” by family members, and as dating his biologically male roommate who was transitioning genders.
Kimmel also made fun of President Donald Trump’s reaction to Kirk’s assassination.
“(Trump is) at the fourth stage of grief: construction. This is not how an adult grieves the murder of someone he called a friend. This is how a 4-year-old mourns a goldfish,” Kimmel said.
The following day, ABC affiliate Nexstar Media Group, Inc. said in a press release that it would no longer air Kimmel’s show, saying that company officials “strongly object” to “recent comments made by Mr. Kimmel concerning the killing of Charlie Kirk and will replace the show with other programming in its ABC-affiliated markets.”
Andrew Alford, the president of Nexstar’s broadcast division, also said Kimmel’s comments were “offensive and insensitive at a critical time in our national political discourse.”
“Continuing to give Mr. Kimmel a broadcast platform in the communities we serve is simply not in the public interest at the current time, and we have made the difficult decision to preempt his show in an effort to let cooler heads prevail as we move toward the resumption of respectful, constructive dialogue,” he said.
Reaction to Jimmy Kimmel suspension
But many came to the defense of Kimmel, including several fellow late-night hosts.
“The Tonight Show” host Jimmy Fallon voiced concerns of censorship from the federal government, specifically President Donald Trump, who praised the show’s cancellation.
Fallon said, “To be honest with you all, I don’t know what’s going on, and no one does. But I do know Jimmy Kimmel, and he’s a decent, funny and loving guy, and I hope he comes back.”
Trump even referenced Kimmel’s show being cut in his remarks at Charlie Kirk’s funeral on Sunday and those who have spoken out against it: “The same commentators who this week are screaming fascism over a cancelled late-night TV show where the anchor had no talent and no ratings, last week were implying that Charlie Kirk deserved what happened to him.”
Seth Meyers, on NBC’s “Late Night,” had a similar sentiment to Fallon’s.
“This is a big moment in our democracy and we must all stand up for the principles of free expression,” he said. “There’s a reason free speech is in the very first amendment. It stands above all others.”