Source: Kevin Winter / Getty
It took only several days for ABC/Disney to lift their suspension of Jimmy Kimmel from the Jimmy Kimmel Live! show, and just like that, the host was back on air.
On Tuesday, the highly anticipated return of the show began with a bevy of news clips, most of which were from Fox News, showing how excited or deflated the hosts were in learning that Kimmel was back on television after he dared to comment on the president’s ambivalence over right-wing pundit Charlie Kirk’s death.
After one news anchor called Kimmel’s comeback a “huge moment in American history” and another noted it was “one of the most pivotal moments in broadcast history,” cameras then cut to Kimmel and his sidekick, Guillermo Rodriguez, dressed in monkey and banana suits.
“Maybe we should change,” they say, and the show was back on.
“Kimmel entered the stage in Hollywood to a standing ovation and minute-long applause for his monologue. ‘Anyway, as I was saying before I was interrupted,’ Kimmel said to open the show. He then joked that his program was ‘preempting your regularly scheduled encore episode of “Celebrity Family Feud” to bring you this special report — I am happy to be here tonight,’” NY Mag reports.
Kimmel was sidelined for about a week after comments he made that were critical of the White House’s response following Kirk’s assasination at Utah Valley State Sept. 10. Kimmel stated in his Sept. 15 monologue that the “MAGA gang” was “desperately trying to characterize this kid who murdered Charlie Kirk as anything other than one of them” and trying to “score political points from it.”
Two days later, Federal Communications Commission chair Brendan Carr said during a podcast that Kimmel should be off the air and that “we can do this the easy way or the hard way.” The big companies that own the smaller ABC affiliates agreed and pulled Kimmel’s show from across the U.S. ABC then announced that Kimmel was suspended “indefinitely.”
“It was never my intention to make fun of a murder of a young man,” Kimmel said about comments he made surrounding Kirk’s death. “I don’t think there’s anything funny about it.” He added that his comments may have been “ill-timed or unclear or maybe both. And for those who think I did point a finger, I get why you’re upset.”
He also pointed out that, “This show is not important,” he said. “What is important is that we get to live in a country that allows us to have a show like this.”
Kimmel then got to making jokes, noting that, “FCC commissioner Carr was the ‘most embarrassing car the Republicans have embraced since this one.’ Producers then put up a picture of a Cybertruck with gold ‘Trump’ lettering,” NY Mag reports.
He also added that Trump may want to release the Epstein files to distract us from all of this late-night stuff.
Kimmel also went after President Trump, who “made it very clear he wants to see me and the hundreds of people who work here fired from our jobs. Our leader celebrates Americans losing their livelihoods because he cannot take a joke,” NY Mag reports.
Proving his point, President Trump took to Truth Social to post that Kimmel was “yet another arm of the DNC.” And, in true Trump fashion he alluded to filing a lawsuit against ABC again, “Let’s see how we do,” Trump wrote. “Last time I went after them, they gave me $16 million,” referencing a defamation lawsuit ABC settled with Trump in Dec.
Check out social media’s reaction to Kimmel’s return below.
