NEED TO KNOW
- After a six-day hiatus, Jimmy Kimmel Live! will return to ABC on Tuesday, Sept. 23
- The Walt Disney Company announced the return in a press release on Sept. 22, and said they’d had “thoughtful conversations” with the host since the show was pulled off the air on Sept. 17
- Seth Meyers reacted to the news on the Sept. 22 episode of Late Night with Seth Meyers
Seth Meyers is telling fans that it is “possible” to stand up to “bullying and censorship” as Jimmy Kimmel’s suspension is pulled.
After the Walt Disney Company announced in a press release that Jimmy Kimmel Live! will return to the air on Tuesday, Sept. 23, Meyers reacted to the news during the latest episode of Late Night with Seth Meyers hours later — and as he explained, he only learned of the news right before taping the episode.
“It is possible to stand up to this kind of bullying and censorship. For example, Trump tried to sue the New York Times and that suit has already been thrown out. And minutes before we started taping, we got word that our friend Jimmy Kimmel will be back on the air tomorrow,” Meyers, 51, told his audience on the NBC series, as they applauded the news.
“There has been a massive national backlash to Trump’s crackdown on free speech, even among conservatives. I haven’t seen a poll yet. But I think, if you asked Americans if the president should be dictating what TV hosts can and can’t say, you’d get about 3% positive and,” he added, cutting to a clip of Trump saying “97% negative” — from when he claimed that networks were “97% against me” in a recent interview.
PEOPLE has reached out to The White House for comment.
Kimmel’s late-night show was pulled off the air on Sept. 17, and an ABC spokesperson told PEOPLE at the time it would be on pause “indefinitely” due to comments the host made in his Sept. 15 monologue about Charlie Kirk, who was shot and killed on Sept. 10.
“We hit 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,” Kimmel, 57, said in the monologue. “In between the finger-pointing, there was grieving. On Friday, the White House flew the flags at half staff, which got some criticism, but on a human level, you can see how hard the president is taking this.”
From there, the show cut to a clip of the press asking President Donald Trump how he was holding up, to which he replied, “I think very good, and by the way, right there where you see all the trucks, they just started construction of the new ballroom for the White House.”
Trump, 79, then continued by discussing the ballroom plans, saying the result would “be a beauty.” Afterward, the cameras cut back to Kimmel, who said, “Yes, he’s at the fourth stage of grief, construction,” the comedian said.
Prior to his on-air comments, Kimmel had offered his condolences on social media to Kirk’s family.
“Instead of the angry finger-pointing, can we just for one day agree that it is horrible and monstrous to shoot another human?” he wrote. “On behalf of my family, we send love to the Kirks and to all the children, parents and innocents who fall victim to senseless gun violence.”
In the Sept. 22 press release, Disney said its initial decision to “suspend production” was out of a desire to “avoid further inflaming a tense situation at an emotional moment for our country.”
Meyers addressed Kimmel’s initial suspension on Sept. 18, as he said Trump’s “administration is pursuing a crackdown on free speech” and jokingly complimented the president in a bid to protect his own show.
“Completely unrelated, I just want to say, before we get started here, that I’ve always admired and respected Mr. Trump. I’ve always believed he was a visionary, innovator, a great president, and an even better golfer. And if you’ve ever seen me say anything negative about him, that’s just AI.”
On a more serious note, Meyers said during the episode, “It is a privilege and an honor to call Jimmy Kimmel my friend in the same way that it’s a privilege and honor to do this show every night. I wake up every day, I count my blessings that I live in a country that at least purports to value freedom of speech, and we’re gonna keep doing our show the way we’ve always done it: with enthusiasm and integrity.”
Hours before the news that Kimmel would return on Sept. 22, over 400 celebrities signed a letter defending the constitutional right to free speech and supporting Kimmel. Jennifer Aniston, Ben Affleck and Tom Hanks were among the signatures on the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) letter, along with prominent Disney stars Selena Gomez, Pedro Pascal, Diego Luna, Martin Short and Meryl Streep.
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Nexstar Media — the largest local broadcast and digital media company in the U.S., with more than 200 television stations in 116 markets — previously told PEOPLE it “strongly objects” to Kimmel’s comments about Kirk in his monologue. The company recently announced plans to acquire rival broadcast company Tegna for $6.2 billion, a massive deal that would further consolidate the local television landscape and put Nexstar in 80% of America’s TV-owning households, according to a press release. The acquisition will require final approval from the Trump-controlled Federal Communications Commission.
Similarly, Sinclair (which has ABC stations in 30 U.S. markets) said in a statement last week that the host’s “remarks were inappropriate and deeply insensitive at a critical moment for our country.”
FCC Chair Brendan Carr was quick to praise Nexstar for putting pressure on ABC to remove Kimmel. “It is important for broadcasters to push back on Disney programming that they determine falls short of community values,” Carr wrote on X.
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