The Fantastic Four: First Steps star Pedro Pascal is among the Hollywood powerhouses defending host Jimmy Kimmel following ABC‘s preemption of late-night mainstay Jimmy Kimmel Live!
On Thursday, the multi-Emmy-nominated actor — who is a significant part of Disney/Marvel’s big relaunch alongside fellow First Steps stars Vanessa Kirby, Ebon Moss-Bachrach and Joseph Quinn, all of whom are slated to be in Avengers: Doomsday — defended Kimmel on Instagram after his unceremonious sidelining.
“Standing with you @jimmykimmellive,” Pascal wrote alongside an image of the two of them on the late-nighter. “Defend #FreeSpeech Defend #DEMOCRACY”
Pascal is in good company in making such a statement, joining the likes of fellow Marvel stars like Tatiana Maslany, who urged viewers to boycott ABC’s parent company and cancel their subscriptions to Disney services. Other leading talent, like Damon Lindelof, vowed they would not work with Disney until the show was reinstated. Andor writer and recently minted Emmy winner Dan Gilroy penned a guest column in Deadline denouncing the “venomous evil” and governmental “siege” the network pulling represented, and former Disney CEO Michael Eisner condemned the move as a signal of poor leadership at the Mouse House. In Hollywood overall, guilds have reacted with fervor, with writers and actors protesting at the Disney lot in Burbank.
In a widely denounced move that has sent shockwaves through both the entertainment industry and American society at large, ABC’s indefinite suspension of Jimmy Kimmel Live! on Wednesday came after FCC chair Brendan Carr threatened action over a joke made at President Donald Trump’s expense, in which Kimmel poked fun at POTUS for being in the “construction” stage of grief for segueing from a reporter’s question about how he is “holding up” over the assassination of Charlie Kirk into the remodeling being done on the White House ballroom.
The action also followed largest TV station group Nexstar’s pulling of the show for the “foreseeable future,” which the company later clarified it did so “unilaterally” sans FCC pressure. Meanwhile, Sinclair Broadcast Group, the second largest national station operator and largest owner of ABC affiliate stations, said it would not lift the suspension until Kimmel had apologized to Kirk’s family and made a “meaningful donation” to his conservative nonprofit organization Turning Point USA. As such, the company replaced its Kimmel slot with a tribute to Kirk.
Meanwhile, Trump has celebrated the news, implying that late-night hosts Seth Meyers and Jimmy Fallon are next up for removal.
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