“Jimmy Kimmel Live!” Suspended — What Happened & How Hollywood is Reacting

ABC has indef­i­nite­ly sus­pend­ed Jim­my Kim­mel Live! after host Jim­my Kim­mel made con­tro­ver­sial remarks about the fatal shoot­ing of con­ser­v­a­tive activist Char­lie Kirk on Sep­tem­ber 10, 2025. His com­ments crit­i­cized con­ser­v­a­tive-lean­ing indi­vid­u­als and media for politi­ciz­ing the tragedy. Pitchfork+3Business Insider+3EW.com+3

What Jimmy Kimmel Said

In a mono­logue ear­li­er, Kim­mel stat­ed:

“We had 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.”

These remarks trig­gered back­lash from polit­i­cal fig­ures, and pres­sure fol­lowed from affil­i­ate net­works and reg­u­la­to­ry enti­ties.

Reactions from Hollywood & Public Figures

Many in Hol­ly­wood have con­demned the sus­pen­sion as a threat to free speech, while some polit­i­cal fig­ures and media groups defend­ed it. Here are a num­ber of the key reac­tions:

• Damon Lin­de­lof (co-cre­ator of Lost): “I was shocked, sad­dened and infu­ri­at­ed by yesterday’s sus­pen­sion and look for­ward to it being lift­ed soon. If it isn’t, I can’t in good con­science work for the com­pa­ny that imposed it”
• He also praised Kim­mel as “car­ing and empath­ic and grate­ful… you know he loves his coun­try… sup­port­ed his crew … gen­er­ous and phil­an­thropic … and most of all, you know that he is kind.” EW.com
• Ben Stiller: Stiller react­ed sim­ply, writ­ing: “This isn’t right.”
• Wan­da Sykes: In a video, she said: “But as you have heard by now, the Jim­my Kim­mel show has been pulled indef­i­nite­ly, abrupt­ly, because of com­plaints from the Trump admin­is­tra­tion … [Trump] end­ed free­dom of speech with­in his first year of his term. Love you, Jim­my.” People.com
• Jean Smart: “I am hor­ri­fied at the can­cel­la­tion of Jim­my Kim­mel Live. What Jim­my said was FREE speech, not hate speech.”
  “Peo­ple seem to only want to pro­tect free speech when it suits THEIR agen­da.”
• Kathy Grif­fin: “Please, take it from me, it’s very impor­tant to have Jim­my Kimmel’s back right now. Be vocal. Be an ide­o­log­i­cal con­sumer. Mon­ey is all their crowd cares about.” People.com
• Sophia Bush: “The First Amend­ment doesn’t exist in Amer­i­ca any­more. Peri­od. Fas­cism is here and it’s chill­ing.” People.com+1
• Christie Brink­ley: Shar­ing on Insta­gram, she post­ed a pho­to of late-night hosts and said: “I Love these guys! The laugh­ter they pro­vide us is as impor­tant as the air we breathe! And they are tak­ing anoth­er one of them off the air tonight! We must pro­tect their and our First Amend­ment rights!!!”
• Rosie O’Don­nell: She was more strong­ly word­ed. Among her com­ments: “This is unac­cept­able … Amer­i­ca is no more.”
• Alex Edel­man: “This is the actu­al can­cel cul­ture every­one claims to hate so much.”

Broader Themes & Implications

Many of the reac­tions focus on these larg­er con­cerns:

• Free speech vs. polit­i­cal pres­sure. Sev­er­al com­ments assert that Kimmel’s remarks fall under free speech, not hate speech, and that sus­pen­sion is due to polit­i­cal inter­fer­ence. Pitchfork+2EW.com+2
• Fear of “can­cel cul­ture” being used to silence dis­sent, par­tic­u­lar­ly when it involves satire or crit­i­cism from pub­lic fig­ures. Pitchfork+1
• Cor­po­rate and gov­ern­ment influ­ence on media con­tent and deci­sions. Some fear ABC (owned by Dis­ney) act­ed under pres­sure from the Trump admin­is­tra­tion or from reg­u­la­to­ry bod­ies like the FCC.