The Walt Disney Company and ABC announced today that Jimmy Kimmel Live! will return to the air starting tomorrow, Tuesday, September 23. Disney suspended production of the show last week after Kimmel’s remarks regarding the killing of conservative activist Charlie Kirk.
In announcing the news, Disney said…
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. 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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Disney and ABC took Jimmy Kimmel Live! off the air last Wednesday, over comments Kimmel made on the Tuesday edition of his show, when he said things in the country “anthem 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.”
After the show aired, several owners of local television stations around the country, Nexstar Media and Sinclair, said they would not air Jimmy Kimmel Live! over his words. Their announcements that they intended to take the show off their airwaves came after Federal Communications Commission chair Brendan Carr said on a podcast that network affiliates (like Nextstar and Sinclair) should “push back” against ABC and the show over Kimmel’s words.
While some, including President Donald Trump, celebrated the news of Kimmel’s indefinite suspension, others protested Disney’s decision. Earlier today, some 400 celebrities released a letter with the American Civil Liberties Union decrying Kimmel’s suspension as an attack on the freedom of speech and saying that the government pressuring networks to fire people who disagreed with them “strike at the heart of what it means to live in a free country.”
It’s as yet unclear how Kimmel will address the show being removed from the air, or whether he will offer an apology.
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