Emotional Jimmy Kimmel Breaks Down Addressing Charlie Kirk’s Death on Show Return

LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA: Jim­my Kim­mel returned to Jim­my Kim­mel Live! in tears on Tues­day, Sep­tem­ber 23, after near­ly a week-long sus­pen­sion fol­low­ing his con­tro­ver­sial remarks about the shoot­ing of con­ser­v­a­tive activist Char­lie Kirk.

Open­ing with an emo­tion­al mono­logue, Kim­mel clar­i­fied that he nev­er intend­ed to sug­gest the shoot­er, Tyler Robin­son, had any ties to MAGA or Trump sup­port­ers. Mean­while, ABC and par­ent com­pa­ny Dis­ney con­tin­ue to face back­lash over the inci­dent

Jim­my Kim­mel explains pre­vi­ous com­ments to view­ers

Jim­my Kim­mel addressed view­ers direct­ly dur­ing his emo­tion­al return to Jim­my Kim­mel Live!, clar­i­fy­ing that his ear­li­er com­ments had been mis­in­ter­pret­ed. “I have no illu­sions about chang­ing anyone’s mind, but I do want to make some­thing clear… it was nev­er my inten­tion to make light of the mur­der of a young man,” he said, his voice break­ing.

The host grew vis­i­bly emo­tion­al and broke into tears as he described reach­ing out to Char­lie Kirk’s fam­i­ly on social media. He point­ed to an Insta­gram post he had made on the day of the killing, empha­siz­ing that he still sends “love and con­do­lences” to the fam­i­ly and nev­er intend­ed to blame “any spe­cif­ic group for the actions of what was obvi­ous­ly a deeply dis­turbed indi­vid­ual.”

Kim­mel also acknowl­edged the back­lash, admit­ting his remarks may have come across poor­ly. “To some, it felt either ill-timed or unclear — or maybe both. And for those who think I did point a fin­ger… I get why you’re upset. If the sit­u­a­tion was reversed, there’s a good chance I’d have felt the same way,” he reflect­ed.

Mark­ing his come­back, Kim­mel wel­comed actor Glenn Pow­ell and singer Sarah McLach­lan as his first guests. Pow­ell said he was “hon­ored” to be part of the episode and “glad” the host was back on air. McLach­lan closed the show with a mov­ing per­for­mance, though she did not direct­ly address the con­tro­ver­sy.

Kim­mel end­ed the night with a touch of humor, quip­ping, “I think we’ll be back tomor­row night — see you then,” hint­ing at a hope­ful return to nor­mal­cy despite the storm sur­round­ing him.

Don­ald Trump Crit­i­cizes ABC Over Jim­my Kimmel’s Return

On Mon­day, Dis­ney con­firmed ‘Jim­my Kim­mel Live!’ would return to air after being pulled on Sep­tem­ber 17. “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 com­pa­ny said in a state­ment. “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.”

Mean­while, Pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump lashed out at ABC over its deci­sion to bring Jim­my Kim­mel back to late-night tele­vi­sion after his sus­pen­sion, accus­ing the net­work of bias and poor judg­ment.

Con­tem­plat­ing the network’s deci­sion, Trump con­tin­ued, “Some­thing hap­pened between then and now because his audi­ence is GONE, and his ‘tal­ent’ was nev­er there. Why would they want some­one back who does so poor­ly, who’s not fun­ny, and who puts the Net­work in jeop­ardy by play­ing 99% pos­i­tive Demo­c­rat GARBAGE. He is yet anoth­er arm of the DNC and, to the best of my knowl­edge, that would

be a major Ille­gal Cam­paign Con­tri­bu­tion.”

Despite the offi­cial return, affil­i­ate broad­cast­ers Nexs­tar Media Group and Sin­clair Broad­cast Group declined to air the pro­gram. Sin­clair announced via X that it would “replace the show with news pro­gram­ming” while dis­cus­sions with ABC con­tin­ue.