Disney Pulled Jimmy Kimmel as Pressure Built on Multiple Fronts

For Robert A. Iger and his leadership team at Disney and ABC, time was running out.

Jimmy Kimmel, one of the company’s biggest stars, was preparing to tape the Wednesday edition of his late-night show in Hollywood at 4:30 p.m. And he had written an opening monologue that would address a cascading political firestorm head-on.

Conservatives had accused Mr. Kimmel of mischaracterizing the politics of the man accused of killing the right-wing activist Charlie Kirk. The chairman of the Federal Communications Commission had just warned ABC of serious consequences, telling the network that “we can do this the easy or the hard way.” And a Texas-based owner of many ABC affiliates was preparing to pull Mr. Kimmel from its stations indefinitely.

Mr. Iger, Disney’s chief executive, and Dana Walden, his head of television, were also hearing from skittish advertisers and employees who had begun to receive threatening messages. When the team reviewed Mr. Kimmel’s planned remarks, they grew concerned that his monologue would only inflame the situation further.

So they made the call: “Jimmy Kimmel Live” would temporarily go dark.

That decision — the product of a spider’s web of interlocking political and financial pressures placed atop one of the country’s biggest corporations — quickly morphed into a flashpoint for free speech in America. Many Democrats, actors and comedians cried foul as right-wing activists celebrated. On a diplomatic trip in Britain, President Trump knocked Mr. Kimmel for “bad ratings” and proclaimed that ABC “should have fired him a long time ago.”

“You can call that free speech or not,” Mr. Trump said. “He was fired for lack of talent.”

Mr. Kimmel, in fact, was not fired. ABC pulled his show “indefinitely,” but network executives on Thursday were hoping to find a path for their late-night star to return to the airwaves soon.