An emotional Jimmy Kimmel returned to his late-night stage on Tuesday and spoke out for the first time about his six-day suspension from ABC.
Kimmel opened the program with clips from different news outlets reacting to his suspension, with one anchor deeming tonight’s show “one of the most pivotal moments in broadcast history.” The show then cut to the host and his sidekick, Guillermo Rodriguez, backstage, costumed as a tiger and a banana, respectively. Kimmel then deadpanned, “We should probably change.”
Kimmel was welcomed by his audience with rapturous applause as he stepped out for his monologue. He then, without missing a stride, quipped, “I’m not sure who had a weirder 48 hours, me or the CEO of Tylenol.”
He made sure to thank all of his allies in the industry who spoke out for him, including Stephen Colbert, John Oliver, Conan O’Brien, James Corden, Jay Leno, Howard Stern and David Letterman. But he also made a point to thank the voices who supported him from the far right.
“Maybe most of all, I want to thank the people who don’t support my show and what I believe, but support my right to share those beliefs anyway,” he said. “People I never would have imagined,
like Ben Shapiro, Clay Travis, Candace Owens, Mitch McConnell, Rand Paul. Even my old pal Ted Cruz, who, believe it or not, said something very beautiful on my behalf.”
He added, “Even though I don’t agree with many of those people on most subjects, some of the things they say even make me want to throw up, it takes courage for them to speak out against this administration, and they did, and they deserve credit for it.”
The host then addressed his Sept. 15 comments on the death of conservative activist Charlie Kirk. Voice breaking, tears in his eyes, he proclaimed, “It was never my intention to make light of the murder of a young man.”
“I don’t think there’s anything funny about it,” he asserted. “I posted a message on Instagram on the day he was killed, sending love to his family and asking for compassion, and I meant it. And I still do. Nor was it my intention to blame any specific group for the actions. It was a deeply disturbed individual. That was really the opposite of the point I was trying to make, but to some, that felt ill-timed or unclear or maybe both, and for those who think I did point a finger, I get why you’re upset. If the situation was reversed, there’s a good chance I would have felt the same way. I have many friends and family members on the other side who I love and remain close to, even though we don’t agree on politics at all. I don’t think the murderer who shot Charlie Kirk represents anyone; this was a sick person who believed violence was a solution, and it isn’t.”
Kimmel emphasized that tonight’s message was not about the importance of “Jimmy Kimmel Live!,” but the fragile significance that “we get to live in a country that allows us to have a show like this.” He went on to bash the cancellation of fellow late-night frontman Colbert and speak out on the importance of free speech.
“[Freedom of speech is] something I’m embarrassed to say I took for granted until they pulled my friend Stephen [Colbert] off the air and tried to coerce the affiliates who run our show in the cities that you live in to take my show off the air,” he said. “That’s not legal, that’s not American. That is un-American. And it’s so dangerous.”
Kimmel then unabashedly took direct aim at Brendan Carr, directly reciting the FCC chair’s quote about his comment on Kirk, which some feel motivated ABC, Nexstar and Sinclair to preempt “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” in the first place.
“Ten years ago, this sounded crazy,” Kimmel exclaimed. “Brendan Carr, the chairman of the FCC, telling an American company, ‘We can do this the easy way or the hard way,’ and that, ‘These companies can find ways to change conduct and take action on Kimmel, or there’s going to be additional work for the FCC ahead.’ In addition to being a direct violation of the First Amendment, it is not a particularly intelligent threat to make in public.”
He was also unfraid to go after Donald Trump. The host pulled a clip of the president telling reporters, “Anybody could replace him, guy had no talent. Kimmel had– look, he was fired. He had no talent. He’s a wack job. But he had no talent. And more importantly, the talent — a lot of people have no talent, they get ratings, but he had no ratings.”
“Well, I do tonight!” Kimmel said with a smile as his audience erupted in applause. “You almost have to feel sorry for him. He tried his best to cancel me. Instead, he forced millions of people to watch the show. That backfired bigly. He might have to release the Epstein files to distract us from this now.”
While making it clear he “was not happy” when ABC pulled him off the air, he made sure to thank the network for allowing him back on late-night. He acknowledged that by choosing to support his show, ABC is “unjustly” put at risk from a president who “made it very clear” he wants to end “Jimmy Kimmel Live!”
“Our leader celebrates Americans losing their livelihoods because he can’t take a joke,” Kimmel said. “He was somehow able to squeeze Colbert out of CBS. Then he turned his sights on me. And now he’s openly rooting for NBC to fire Jimmy Fallon and Seth Meyers, and the hundreds of Americans who work for their shows, who don’t make millions of dollars. And I hope that if that happens, or if there’s even any hint of that happening, you will be ten times as loud as you were this week.”
Kimmel once again broke out in tears when discussing Erika Kirk, the widow of Charlie Kirk, who forgave her husband’s killer at a memorial service on Sunday. He hailed Erika Kirk as “an example we should follow.”
“If you believe in the teachings of Jesus, as I do, there it was. That’s it. A selfless act of grace. Forgiveness from a grieving widow,” he gushed. “It touched me deeply, and I hope it touches many, and if there’s anything we should take from this tragedy to carry forward, I hope it can be that and not this.”
Louis Virtel, a writer on “Jimmy Kimmel Live,” also addressed the matter in his podcast “Keep It.” When guest Guy Branum suggested that the FCC’s role in Kimmel’s suspension was a “clear assault by this president and his administration,” Virtel responded that “it almost felt like they were just waiting for the right phrase to pounce on.” Emphasizing his support of Kimmel’s controversial comments, he said, “This is particular wording was illustrating a point and you are choosing to say it means this other thing.”
“I think joke-telling is often the fastest way to tell the truth, and tell the truth in a way people remember,” Virtel said later in the podcast. “But when it comes to the word ‘fascism,’ actually, I feel like we all
just need to say ‘No. Bad.’ There’s nothing to say. There’s no irony to put on this.”
During his monologue on Monday, Sept. 15, Kimmel said “the MAGA gang” was “desperately trying to characterize this kid who murdered Charlie Kirk as anything other than one of them,” which was interpreted by some as inaccurate and distasteful. Two days later, Donald Trump’s FCC chairman Carr threatened regulatory pressure on broadcasters who aired such remarks, and Nexstar and Sinclair, companies that own roughly one-quarter of ABC’s affiliate channels, vowed to preempt Kimmel’s show. The Disney-owned ABC immediately followed suit, benching Kimmel “indefinitely.”
The suspension led to a swift backlash, as protests broke out in New York and Los Angeles, and Democratic (and some Republican) politicians decried what they viewed as a breach of the First Amendment. 400 celebrities signed an open letter with the ACLU protesting Disney’s decision.
On Monday, ABC announced Kimmel would return on Tuesday. The network wrote in a statement that Kimmel’s comments were “ill-timed and thus insensitive,” and ABC decided to suspend “Jimmy Kimmel Live” to “avoid further inflaming a tense situation at an emotional moment for our country.” The statement concluded, “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.”
Still, Tuesday’s broadcast did not reach all ABC stations around the country. Despite Disney’s decision to bring “Jimmy Kimmel Live” back to the air, Nexstar and Sinclair maintained that they would continue to preempt the show for the time being.
