{"id":167097,"date":"2025-09-25T01:57:07","date_gmt":"2025-09-25T01:57:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/167097\/"},"modified":"2025-09-25T01:57:07","modified_gmt":"2025-09-25T01:57:07","slug":"jimmy-kimmel-comeback-breaks-his-youtube-monologue-views-record-jimmy-kimmel","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/167097\/","title":{"rendered":"Jimmy Kimmel comeback breaks his YouTube monologue views record | Jimmy Kimmel"},"content":{"rendered":"

So much for low viewership: Jimmy Kimmel<\/a>\u2019s comeback monologue<\/a> is now his most-viewed one on YouTube.<\/p>\n

The nearly 30-minute segment<\/a>, in which Kimmel acknowledged his suspension by ABC owner Disney<\/a> under pressure from the Trump administration<\/a>, clarified his remarks on the killing of Charlie Kirk<\/a> and passionately defended free speech, racked up more than 15m views in 16 hours.<\/p>\n

Numerous Jimmy Kimmel<\/a> Live! sketches, interviews and other short clips have attracted tens of millions of views over the year, but Tuesday night\u2019s segment marked record viewership for one of the comedian\u2019s monologues.<\/p>\n

And according to preliminary figures from Nielsen, the show drew 6.26 million broadcast viewers, despite not being aired on dozens of ABC affiliate stations owned by the companies Sinclair and Nexstar, which is seeking FCC approval for a $6.2bn merger. Jimmy Kimmel Live! typically averages about 1.6 million broadcast viewers per night.<\/p>\n

Kimmel\u2019s previous most-watched monologue on YouTube was from another emotional occasion in 2017, when Kimmel revealed<\/a> that the birth of his son, Billy, with a congenital heart condition required immediate open-heart surgery. Other highly viewed monologues include his reaction to Will Smith\u2019s infamous slap of Chris Rock at the 2022 Oscars (13m views), his response to the mass shooting at the Route 91 Harvest music festival in Las Vegas in 2017 (10m views) and his thoughts on Trump\u2019s re-election last November (9m views).<\/p>\n

The spike in viewership comes after Disney suspended<\/a> his late-night show under pressure from the Trump-appointed head of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) over his comments<\/a> on the shooting of rightwing activist Charlie Kirk<\/a>. The decision quickly became a cultural flashpoint, prompting national outcry over free speech<\/a> and condemnation over the bullying tactics of the Trump administration. Disney reversed course on Monday, following \u201cthoughtful conversations with Jimmy\u201d and pressure from Hollywood stars<\/a>, free speech advocates<\/a>, consumer boycotts<\/a>, union protests<\/a> and even Republicans such as Ted Cruz<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"JimmyJimmy Kimmel returns to air with emotional monologue \u2013 video<\/p>\n

Shortly before Tuesday\u2019s show aired, Donald Trump<\/a> lashed out at the host, a longtime needler and critic and criticized ABC for allowing his return to broadcast.<\/p>\n

\u201cI can\u2019t believe ABC Fake News gave Jimmy Kimmel his job back,\u201d Trump wrote<\/a> on Truth Social. \u201cThe White House was told by ABC that his Show was cancelled! Something happened between then and now because his audience is GONE, and his \u2018talent\u2019 was never there.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI think we\u2019re going to test ABC out on this,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

\u201cLet\u2019s see how we do. Last time I went after them, they gave me $16 Million Dollars. This one sounds even more lucrative,\u201d Trump said, seemingly referring to the settlement he reached with ABC News<\/a> last year in a defamation lawsuit filed against the network.<\/p>\n

In his return, Kimmel was neither conciliatory nor fiery. He decried his suspension as \u201canti-American\u201d \u2013 \u201cthis show is not important,\u201d he said, \u201cwhat is important is that we get to live in a country that allows us to have a show like this\u201d \u2013 and clarified his stance on Kirk\u2019s death. \u201cIt was never my intention to make light of the murder of a young man,\u201d he said. \u201cI don\u2019t think there\u2019s anything funny about it.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cNor was it my intention to blame any specific group for the actions of what \u2013 it was obviously a deeply disturbed individual,\u201d he added. \u201cThat was really the opposite of the point I was trying to make, but I understand that to some that felt either ill-timed or unclear, or maybe both. And for those who think I did point a finger, I get why you\u2019re upset. If the situation was reversed, there\u2019s a good chance I\u2019d have felt the same way.\u201d<\/p>\n

Kimmel also praised Kirk\u2019s widow, Erika Kirk, for offering the accused killer forgiveness in a televised memorial service over the weekend.<\/p>\n

\u201cLook, I never imagined I would be in a situation like this,\u201d he later said. \u201cI barely paid attention in school. One thing I did learn from from Lenny Bruce and George Carlin and Howard Stern, is that a government threat to silence a comedian the president doesn\u2019t like is anti-American \u2026 Let\u2019s stop letting these politicians tell us what they want and tell them what we want.\u201d<\/p>\n

Jimmy Kimmel Live! will air as usual on Wednesday night, except on the 28 affiliates owned by Nexstar and the 38 owned by Sinclair. On Wednesday, Nexstar told Variety<\/a> that it is \u201ccontinuing to evaluate the status of \u2018Jimmy Kimmel Live!\u2019 on our ABC-affiliated local television stations, and the show will be preempted while we do so. We are engaged in productive discussions with executives at The Walt Disney Company, with a focus on ensuring the program reflects and respects the diverse interests of the communities we serve.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"So much for low viewership: Jimmy Kimmel\u2019s comeback monologue is now his most-viewed one on YouTube. The nearly…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":167098,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[64,63,447,134],"class_list":{"0":"post-167097","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-celebrities","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-celebrities","11":"tag-entertainment"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/167097","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=167097"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/167097\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/167098"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=167097"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=167097"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=167097"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}