Jimmy Kimmel To Return To His Late-Night Show After Disney Faces Backlash Over His Suspension

Jimmy Kimmel will return to his US talk show on Tuesday night, his employers at Disney have confirmed.

Last week, it was revealed that Jimmy was being taken off air “indefinitely” as the result of remarks he made about the fall-out from the killing of far-right political commentator Charlie Kirk.

During his opening monologue on 15 September, the comedian remarked: “We hit some new lows over the weekend with the MAGA gang desperately trying to characterise this kid who murdered Charlie Kirk as anything other than one of them, and doing everything they can to score political points from it.”

Later that week, the broadcaster ABC – which is owned by Disney – confirmed in a statement: “Jimmy Kimmel Live will be pre-empted indefinitely.”

This sparked an outcry from some critics, with many calling for a boycott of the streaming services Disney+ and Hulu (which is also owned by Disney), with the company reported to have taken a hit of around $3 billion overnight.

Meanwhile, more than 400 public figures co-signed an open letter criticising the suspension of Jimmy’s show.

On Monday evening, ABC 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.”

Among the signatories on the opening letter condemning Jimmy’s suspension were stars from some of Disney’s biggest shows, including The Mandalorian star Pedro Pascal, Only Murders In The Building actor Selena Gomez, Andor’s Diego Luna and Agatha All Along’s Kathryn Hahn, as well as Moana voice actor Auli’i Cravalho.

Jimmy’s fellow late-night hosts including John Oliver, Bill Maher, Conan O’Brien and Jimmy Fallon all publicly showed him their support, as did the panellists on The View, which also airs on ABC.