3 weeks ago
16
The network’s removal of Mr. Kimmel’s show last week almost immediately morphed into a flashpoint for free speech in America.
Sept. 22, 2025Updated 4:09 p.m. ET
Jimmy Kimmel is coming back.
ABC said on Monday that “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” would return to its airwaves on Tuesday, ending an impasse that began last week.
“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,” the Walt Disney Company, ABC’s parent company, said in a statement.
“It is a decision we made because we felt some of the comments were ill-timed and thus insensitive,” the statement said. “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.”
The network had removed Mr. Kimmel “indefinitely” last week after a top Trump regulator and many conservatives said he inaccurately described the politics of the man accused of fatally shooting the right-wing activist Charlie Kirk.
The subsequent suspension of “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” almost immediately morphed into a flashpoint for free speech in America.
ABC pulled the show just hours after Brendan Carr, the chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, said on a podcast that Mr. Kimmel’s remarks were part of a “concerted effort to lie to the American people,” and that the agency was “going to have remedies that we can look at.”
“Frankly, when you see stuff like this — I mean, we can do this the easy way or the hard way,” Mr. Carr told the podcast’s host, Benny Johnson.
Mr. Kimmel had planned to address the growing firestorm during his opening monologue for the Wednesday episode of “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” But after senior Disney executives — including its chief executive, Robert A. Iger, and its head of television, Dana Walden — reviewed Mr. Kimmel’s planned remarks, they worried his monologue would make the situation worse, and decided to bench him and his show instead.
Disney did not publicly explain its decision at the time, and Mr. Kimmel still has not commented publicly on the show’s suspension. Mr. Kimmel’s representatives and Disney executives discussed a workable compromise for days.
It is still unclear whether Nexstar and Sinclair — two major television operators that own many ABC affiliates and have vowed to pre-empt “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” in the aftermath of his comments — will air future episodes of the show.
Representatives for Nexstar and Sinclair did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
John Koblin covers the television industry for The Times.
