In mid-September of 2025, Jimmy Kimmel was suspended from air indefinitely by ABC. Kimmel had made various remarks in response to Charlie Kirk’s death, which caused this suspension. His comments began in his opening monologue on September 15, 2025, targeted towards President Donald Trump and his supporters.
On Thursday, September 11, Kimmel started by thanking everyone for being there and then stated, according to KTLA news, “I’ve seen a lot of extraordinarily vile responses to this from both sides of the political spectrum. Some people are cheering this, which is something I won’t ever understand.” He quickly moved on, claiming that instead of attempting to bring everyone together, Trump was blaming the Democrats. There was no show that Friday. On Monday, September 15, only a few minutes into his monologue, he said, “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.” Nexstar Media argued these comments about Mr. Kirk’s death were “offensive and insensitive at a critical time in our national political discourse, and we do not believe they reflect the spectrum of opinions, views, or values of the local communities in which we are located,” and wanted him to be removed from the broadcasting platform. On Tuesday, he discussed Kirk’s death once again, making yet another comment about the Trump Supporters. “Many in ‘MAGA land’ are working very hard to capitalize on the murder of Charlie Kirk.” Kimmel was suspended from airing his broadcasting show the following day.
Kimmel returned to his broadcasting show on Tuesday after a six-day suspension. He moved to address his own comments towards Charlie Kirk’s death. He started by saying, as mentioned by Euro News, “I do want to make something clear, because it’s important to me as a human, you understand that it was never my intention to make light of the murder of a young man. I don’t think there’s anything funny about it.” He continued to condemn his own actions through his heartfelt words, “Nor was it my intention to blame any specific group for the actions of what was obviously a deeply disturbed individual. That was really the opposite of the point I was trying to make.” After he apologized for his earlier words, he thanked the people who supported him. Kimmel thanked those who don’t support his beliefs or his show, but “support my right to share those beliefs anyway,” as quoted by Euro News. “It takes courage for them to speak out against this administration. They did, and they deserve credit for it.” He later finished off his response to the suspension by criticizing the government and those in ABC who removed his show from the air. “That’s not legal. That’s not American. It’s un-American.” Kimmel will keep airing his late-night show on ABC starting today, and there’s no reason to think otherwise.
