Jimmy Kimmel was 21st century ‘cancelled’ from the internet after discussing the death of Charlie Kirk on his show, “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” where he opened the night of Sep 15 with a monologue discussing weekly events, especially covering the identification of Kirk’s killer, Tyler Robinson.
“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,” Kimmel said. Many conservative viewers argued that Mr. Kimmel was inaccurately portraying the true political beliefs of Robinson.
Federal Communication Commission’s (FCC) very own member Brendan Carr was the next part to the feud. “Carr tapped into preexisting MAGA media anger about a Monday night Kimmel monologue and used a right-wing podcaster’s platform to blast Kimmel and pressure ABC’s parent company Disney,” CNN reported.
Commissioner Carr was also noted for being a spokesperson against censorship of Republican views and conservative beliefs on both the internet and various social media platforms. Yet, in response to Kimmel’s show and misrepresentation of Robinson, he points out how ABC has only so much power, and that television station owners can choose to not stream the program at all, therefore removing the exposure of the show.
“It’s time for them to step up,” Carr said.
Carr was reported to be threatening Disney to “take action” against Jimmy Kimmel. Directions were given to stations Nexstar and Sinclair, both of which are awaiting approval for mergers or were financially, or benefittingly, affiliated with the Trump administration. This pushed for Disney executives to be forced to suspend production until all matters were sorted.
Jimmy Kimmel was then fully suspended for almost a whole week. On Sept 22, a decision was made regarding the future of his show.
“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,” Disney Co. said.
Jimmy Kimmel gave a monologue on the Tuesday night of his return, which he began by thanking all of the support he had received from coworkers, friends, other night hosts and most importantly political disputants.
He addressed the reason for the backlash.
“I do want to make something clear, because it’s important to me as a human and that is, you understand that it was never my intention to make light of the murder of a young man,” Kimmel said. “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 it, ever.”
Kimmel’s suspension didn’t just anger regular show-viewers, but also sparked a large-scale denunciation of free speech infringement.
“This show is not important. What is important is that we get to live in a country that allows us to have a show like this,” Kimmel said. “I’ve had the opportunity to meet and spend time with comedians and talk show hosts from countries…they know how lucky we are here. Our freedom to speak is what they admire most about this country.”
Kimmel isn’t the only late night host who faced backlash and cancellation.
Stephen Colbert of “The Late Show” will be the host of the show until its end in May 2026. Paramount Global and CBS cancelled the show in a “purely financial” decision. However, Colbert argued, “how could it be a ‘purely financial decision’ if ‘The Last Show’ is number one in ratings?”
Kimmel addressed the decision in his own monologue.
“That’s something I’m embarrassed to say I took for granted until they pulled my friend Stephen 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. That’s not legal. That’s not American. That is un-American and it is so dangerous,” Kimmel said.
Now that Kimmel is back on the air, many Americans are left wondering about the current state of freedom of speech.
