Jimmy Kimmel’s Show Yanked by ABC Following Controversy Over Charlie Kirk Comments

Dis­ney-owned ABC made a stun­ning move this week, pulling Jim­my Kim­mel Live! off the air indef­i­nite­ly. The deci­sion comes after back­lash over Kimmel’s recent mono­logue about Char­lie Kirk’s sus­pect­ed killer — and heavy pres­sure from the Trump administration’s FCC chair.

The Controversy Behind the Suspension

Dur­ing Monday’s episode, Kim­mel crit­i­cized the MAGA move­ment for try­ing to spin the iden­ti­ty of Tyler Robin­son, the man accused of killing con­ser­v­a­tive activist Char­lie Kirk. Kim­mel said the right was “des­per­ate­ly try­ing to char­ac­ter­ize this kid… as any­thing oth­er than one of them,” spark­ing out­rage among pro-Trump media out­lets.

By Wednes­day, FCC chair Bren­dan Carr went on Fox and con­ser­v­a­tive pod­casts, call­ing Kimmel’s com­ments “the sick­est con­duct pos­si­ble.” He even sug­gest­ed that ABC affil­i­ates could lose their broad­cast licens­es unless Dis­ney pun­ished Kim­mel.

With­in hours, ABC announced that the show would be “pre-empt­ed indef­i­nite­ly.”

Station Owners Pile On

Major own­ers of ABC affil­i­ates, includ­ing Nexs­tar and Sin­clair, quick­ly joined in, say­ing they would not air Kimmel’s show in their mar­kets. Both com­pa­nies hap­pen to be seek­ing big merg­er deals that require FCC approval — a fact that didn’t go unno­ticed.

Sin­clair went fur­ther, demand­ing that Kim­mel per­son­al­ly apol­o­gize to the Kirk fam­i­ly and donate to Kirk’s orga­ni­za­tion, Turn­ing Point USA. They also announced plans to air a spe­cial trib­ute to Kirk in Kimmel’s usu­al time slot.

Free Speech Groups Push Back

The move has already drawn sharp crit­i­cism from free speech advo­cates and even FCC com­mis­sion­er Anna Gomez, the lone Demo­c­rat on the agency. Gomez argued that the FCC has no author­i­ty to cen­sor broad­cast­ers for con­tent, call­ing ABC’s deci­sion “a dan­ger­ous new prece­dent.”

SAG-AFTRA, the actors’ union, also con­demned the sus­pen­sion, say­ing that sup­press­ing speech “runs counter to the fun­da­men­tal rights we all rely on.”

Trump Celebrates

Mean­while, for­mer Pres­i­dent Trump praised ABC’s deci­sion on Truth Social while tak­ing shots at Kimmel’s late-night peers:
“Con­grat­u­la­tions to ABC for final­ly hav­ing the courage to do what had to be done,” Trump wrote. “That leaves Jim­my (Fal­lon) and Seth, two total losers, on Fake News NBC. Do it NBC!!!”

A Bigger Battle Over Free Expression

The con­tro­ver­sy high­lights just how politi­cized com­men­tary has become fol­low­ing Kirk’s mur­der. Kimmel’s case is part of a broad­er pat­tern of pres­sure cam­paigns, where polit­i­cal lead­ers and media allies push employ­ers to silence voic­es they dis­like.

For now, Jim­my Kim­mel Live! remains off the air, with no word on when — or if — it will return.