UPDATE (Sept. 23, 2025, 12:20 p.m. ET): Sinclair and Nexstar Media have announced that they will not be airing Jimmy Kimmel’s return on Tuesday on their TV stations.
“Jimmy Kimmel Live!” will return to the air Tuesday night after ABC pulled the late-night show off the air last week over comments the host made after the killing of conservative activist Charlie Kirk.
“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,” ABC said in a statement Monday. “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.”
The drama surrounding Kimmel began after Federal Communications Commission Chair Brendan Carr condemned Kimmel for saying on his Sept. 16 show: “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.”
Carr said at the time that it “appears to be an action by Jimmy Kimmel to play into that narrative that this was somehow a MAGA — or Republican-motivated person.”
He issued a stark warning to ABC: “Frankly, when you see stuff like this — I mean, look, we can do this the easy way or the hard way. These companies can find ways to change conduct, to take action … on Kimmel or, you know, there’s going to be additional work for the FCC ahead.”
Shortly afterward, Nexstar Media and Sinclair, two of the country’s largest TV station owners, announced that they would suspend the show indefinitely. It’s unclear whether they will resume airing Kimmel’s show.
The suspension drew intense backlash, with lawmakers across the political spectrum and other public figures accusing the network of censorship. Fellow late-night hosts — including Stephen Colbert, whose own show will be canceled soon — publicly stood behind Kimmel.
“If ABC thinks that this is going to satisfy the regime, they are woefully naive,” Colbert said on his show.
On his show Sunday night, John Oliver urged his viewers to cancel their subscriptions to Disney+ and Hulu.
“Giving the bully your lunch money doesn’t make him go away. It just makes him come back hungrier each time,” he said.
Last Thursday, former President Barack Obama wrote on X: “After years of complaining about cancel culture, the current administration has taken it to a new and dangerous level by routinely threatening regulatory action against media companies unless they muzzle or fire reporters and commentators it doesn’t like.”
Some conservatives also were critical, with Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, saying of Carr’s comments: “That’s right out of ‘Goodfellas.’ That’s right out of a mafioso coming into a bar, going: ‘Nice bar you have here. It’d be a shame if something happened to it.’”
