Jimmy Kimmel made his return to late night TV on Tuesday, starting with a montage of all the media drama since his show was taken off air, and with Kimmel in a bear costume and sidekick Guillermo Rodriguez dressed as a banana. The mood quickly changed, though, as the host took a more sombre tone for his opening monologue.
“I do want to make something clear because it’s important to me as a human,” said Kimmel. “And that is you understand that 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 also expressed understanding about some of the outrage around his original monologue.
“I get why you’re upset. If the situation was reversed, there’s a good chance I’d 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.”
Kimmel was also critical of the mechanisms that caused his show to be taken off air, calling it “un-American” and “so dangerous.”
“I never imagined I would be in a situation like this. I barely paid attention in school. But one thing I did learn from Lenny Bruce and George Carlin and Howard Stern is that a government threat to silence a comedian the president doesn’t like is anti-American. That’s anti-American. And I am so glad we have some solidarity on that from the right and left and from those in the middle like Joe Rogan. Maybe the silver lining from this is we found one thing we can agree on and maybe we’ll even find another one. Maybe we can get a little bit closer together.”
However, not everyone who wanted to will have been able to tune in to see it, with the two TV station groups, Sinclair and Nexstar, refusing to air it. 66 Nexstar- and Sinclair-owned local stations provided alternative programming.
Jimmy Kimmel Live! was indefinitely suspended last Wednesday after his Monday monologue referenced the death of conservative activist and podcaster Charlie Kirk.
“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,” said Kimmel.
The September 15 monologue sparked the ire of Federal Communications Commission chair Brendan Carr, a Trump Administration appointee who suggested on a podcast that the broadcast licenses of ABC and its affiliates could potentially be revoked over the matter. Almost immediately after Carr’s remarks, both Nexstar and Sinclair – both of which have respective merger deals in the works that require FCC approval – announced they would preempt Jimmy Kimmel Live!, leading Disney-owned ABC to suspend Kimmel indefinitely.
Andrew Alford, President of Nexstar’s broadcasting division, issued the following statement Wednesday to announce the company’s decision regarding Jimmy Kimmel Live!:
“Mr. Kimmel’s comments about the death of Mr. Kirk are offensive and insensitive at a critical time in our national political discourse, and we do not believe they reflect the spectrum of opinions, views, or values of the local communities in which we are located. 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.”
ABC reinstated Kimmel’s show on Monday after many film and TV talents in front of and behind the camera that have worked with Disney, like Star Wars’ Mark Hamill and She-Hulk’s Tatiana Maslany, either threatened to never work with Disney again or urged their followers to cancel their Disney+, Hulu, and ESPN subscriptions for what they deemed ABC cowing to government pressure to stifle citizens’ First Amendment rights.
