Disney has reached a formal decision to bring Jimmy Kimmel back to the ABC airwaves on Tuesday night, just one week after his indefinite suspension following statements he made on Jimmy Kimmel Live! about Charlie Kirks’ assassin and after a threat from President Trump’s FCC chair.
“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,” the Walt Disney Company said in a statement. “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.”
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Days after Kirk’s murder, Kimmel questioned the political affiliation of the killer. “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,” he said, “and doing everything they can to score political points from it”.
This quickly turned into a firestorm since evidence had already emerged that the killer felt that Kirk was a “fascist,” and felt that he preached hate. FCC Chairman Brendan Carr said the comments were “some of the sickest conduct possible,” and threatened to come after ABC or Disney if they didn’t pull the show. “We can do this the easy way or the hard way,” Carr said. “Companies can find ways to change conduct and take action, frankly, on Kimmel, or there’s going to be additional work for the FCC ahead.”
When Disney made the call to suspend the show in the aftermath of Carr’s statements, commentators and politicians from both sides of the aisle erupted with outrage. “I got to say that’s right out of Goodfellas,” said Texas Senator Ted Cruz, who rarely disagrees with MAGA world in public. “That’s right out of a mafioso coming into a bar going, nice bar you have here, it’d be a shame if something happened to it…Going down this road, there will come a time when a Democrat wins again – wins the White House … they will silence us. They will use this power, and they will use it ruthlessly. And that is dangerous.”
Former Disney CEO Michael Eisner chimed in as well. “Where has all the leadership gone?” he asked on X. “Maybe the Constitution should have said, ‘Congress shall make no law abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press, except in one’s political or financial self-interest.’ By-the-way, for the record, this ex-CEO finds Jimmy Kimmel very talented and funny.”
Earlier today, Howard Stern, a longtime friend of Kimmel, blasted Disney on his SiriusXM show, and said he canceled his Disney+ subscription in protest. “You can’t support this kind of a move,” Stern said. “I don’t care whether you like Jimmy or not. It’s about freedom of speech. If ABC wanted to fire Jimmy because they didn’t like him, or he had low ratings — they didn’t want to fire him. They’re being pressured by the United States government. We can’t have that, not if we’re going to have a democracy.”
Adding to the pressure was an open letter from the ACLU signed by over 400 celebrities, including Jennifer Aniston, Jason Bateman, Robert De Niro, Jane Fonda, Selena Gomez, Tom Hanks, Olivia Rodrigo, Ben Stiller, Jamie Lee Curtis, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Michael Keaton, Regina King, Diego Luna, Lin-Manuel Miranda, Natalie Portman, Maya Rudolph, Martin Short, and Kerry Washington.
The campaign clearly reached Disney since they ultimately suspended Kimmel for under one week. And when he comes back to the air, expect record ratings. Everyone will tune in to finally hear him address the matter in his own words. Up until this point, he’s been totally silent.
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