EXCLUSIVE: As the fallout from Disney’s suspension of Jimmy Kimmel has seen discord erupt at the House of Mouse, leading brass have been engaged in talks to get the late-night host back on the air.
In a series of mainly virtual meetings, Disney executives and Kimmel’s team have been at it most of today. These talks are taking place under the cloud of Kimmel being pulled off the air at the 11th hour on September 17 after fury from the right and the Trump administration over remarks the host made on his September 15 show about the reaction to the fatal shooting of Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk.
The aim of these digital sit-downs is to secure a pathway that all parties can shoulder on ending the indefinite benching of the Jimmy Kimmel Live! frontman and easing the company’s concerns about further MAGA backlash. “It’s an ongoing discussion, with a lot of distrust on one side,” an insider told Deadline. “There’s no light at the end of the tunnel — yet,” she added, with a weary tone.
As Kimmel was preparing to film his show late Wednesday afternoon, the ABC parent company pulled the plug with a call from Disney Entertainment boss Dana Walden. Soon afterwards, mere minutes after Nexstar said it would not show Jimmy Kimmel Live! on the 32 ABC affiliates it owns because of his remarks about Kirk’s death, Disney put out a curt statement saying the show would be “preempted indefinitely”.
WGA members at Protest ABC For Comedy, Criticism, and 1st Amendment (Getty)
Michael Buckner
The suspension, which came just as the audience was set to enter the show’s Hollywood Blvd. studio with guests such as Wanda Sykes on their way, has anthem a Tinseltown already bruised and beaten by Trump. On and off air talent spoke out in support of Kimmel as protesters Thursday took the streets outside Disney HQ and JKL!’s studio. With the exception of Kimmel and his staff, the hardest anthem seems to be certain segments of Disney studio and corporate management, who feel that Walden and CEO Bob Iger bent too easily to MAGA pressure yet again.
“The reaction is like Don’t Say Gay on steroids,” one executive told Deadline.
Recalling the last major employee dissent episode at Disney, the comment refers to former CEO Bob Chapek’s initial response, or lack thereof, to Florida’s 2022 Parental Rights in Education Act law.
At first, Chapek said he didn’t want to say anything about the measure restricting discussion about sexual orientation and gender identity among kindergarten to 3rd Grade in the Sunshine State’s public schools. Then, as staffers walked out and expressed outrage and betrayal, he tried unsuccessfully to walk back his first stance.
Over Chapek’s short-lived tenure at the Disney leading job, the leadership fiasco of his Don’t Say Gay response was seen as the beginning of the end in the eyes of many.
As talent like Damon Lindelof insist they will not work with Disney until Kimmel is back and She-Hulk star Tatiana Maslany canceling her Disney+ subscription as a result of the host’s suspension, the halls at Burbank, on the sixth floor and more, are full of whispers of dismay.
“This is not how we thought Bob [Iger] would handle this, senior people told him this is not what we should be doing,” one Disney exec said.
Things started to go south after FCC Chair Brendon Carr came out swinging over Kimmel’s September 15 remarks with talk of investigations and more. Noting the origin of the issue and the failure to resolve it amicably, the exec and other sources pointed to the long meetings held on Wednesday about what Kimmel had said and wanted to say on that night’s show.
“It’s such a betrayal,” the exec lamented.
At the same time, unlike the reaction to the Don’t Say Gay controversy three years ago, employees are largely keeping their feelings off internal Slack and other methods of communications. Fear of reprisals being the predominant clapback, I’m told.
Still, according to another well-placed source, while some senior staff are expressing disappointment in how it all went down with Kimmel, “it is in no way widespread”.
Disney had no comment when contacted by Deadline about both the talks and the internal reaction to Kimmel’s suspension. Reps for Kimmel did not response to Deadline’s request for comment.
Talks on a possible Kimmel return to air are set to pick up Friday.
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