Jimmy Kimmel stopped by his late-night friend Stephen Colbert\u2019s show for his first interview since Jimmy Kimmel Live! returned to the air after being suspended by ABC on Sept. 17.<\/p>\n
During Tuesday night\u2019s episode of The Late Show, Colbert first asked Kimmel to recall how he initially learned his show was \u201cindefinitely\u201d suspended<\/a>, which he called an \u201cemotional roller coaster\u201d and \u201cvery strange\u201d experience. Jimmy Kimmel Live! has since returned to broadcast<\/a> on Sept. 23.<\/p>\n More from The Hollywood Reporter<\/p>\n \u201cIt was about 3:00. We tape our show at 4:30. I\u2019m in my office, typing away as I usually do. I get a phone call, it\u2019s ABC. They say they want to talk to me. This is unusual,\u201d he explained. \u201cAs far as I knew, they didn\u2019t even know I was doing a show previous to this, so I have like five people who work in my office with me, so the only private place to go is the bathroom.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cSo I go into the bathroom. And I\u2019m on the phone with the ABC executives and they say, \u2018Listen, we wanna take the temperature down. We\u2019re concerned about what you\u2019re gonna say tonight and we decided that the best route is to take the show off the air tonight,\u201d he continued, drawing boos from Colbert\u2019s audience, which were directed at ABC executives.<\/p>\n \u201cThat\u2019s what I said. I started booing,\u201d Kimmel quipped. \u201cI said I don\u2019t think that\u2019s a good idea, and they said, \u2018Well, we think it\u2019s a good idea.\u2019 And then there was a vote and I lost the vote. So I put my pants back on and I walked out to my office and I called in some of the executive producers, and there were about nine people in there, and I said, \u2018They\u2019re pulling the show off the air.’\u201d<\/p>\n Kimmel recalled his wife telling him that he looked whiter than actor-comedian Jim Gaffigan when he walked out of the meeting, because \u201cI thought that it\u2019s over. I was like, I\u2019m never coming back on the air.\u201d<\/p>\n The Jimmy Kimmel Live! host also noted that it was even more complicated because his whole audience was already in their seats for the show that night. They also had chef Christian Petroni scheduled for that episode, \u201cwho was making meatballs and polenta that night. He\u2019d been cooking all day,\u201d as well as musician Howard Jones taping a performance.<\/p>\n \u201cThe song he did do because we decided to tape it anyway, even though we sent the audience home, in front of our disappointed employees, was \u2018Things Can Only Get Better.\u2019 Which you could take two ways, right?\u201d he joked.<\/p>\n After, Kimmel said he stayed at the El Capitan Entertainment Centre, where Jimmy Kimmel Live! is filmed, for a few more hours before going home. However, his trip back to his house was crazier than normal.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m followed by 20 paparazzi cars, TMZ people jumping in front of me on the way home. We\u2019re just trying to get to the house and we\u2019re like, \u2018Should we be going to our house?\u2019 There are two helicopters following us home,\u201d he recounted before quipping, \u201cI hadn\u2019t had makeup on yet, so my bald spot was not painted in. This is something I did not want America to see.\u201d<\/p>\n Kimmel then got serious again and admitted his family was \u201cshaken\u201d by everything, especially since they have two children at home.<\/p>\n He said of the days following the initial suspension, \u201cIt was like a DUI in L.A., three days in jail where I couldn\u2019t say anything. I just had to sit quiet and make a lot of phone calls and take a lot of phone calls. You [Colbert] were very kind to call me. \u2026 I did hear from literally everyone I have ever met.\u201d<\/p>\n The same night Kimmel appeared on Colbert\u2019s show, Colbert was also a guest on Kimmel\u2019s show<\/a>, taping in Brooklyn this week. There, the CBS host, who talked about his experience learning his show would be coming to an end, shared a clip of the moment he found out about Kimmel\u2019s suspension.<\/p>\n Jimmy Kimmel Live! was suspended by ABC after a comment the host made during his Sept. 15 episode drew heat online, including\u00a0from FCC chair Brendan Carr<\/a>. During Kimmel\u2019s remark in question, he said, \u201cWe 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.\u201d<\/p>\n President Donald Trump was among some Republicans\u00a0celebrating Kimmel\u2019s brief suspension<\/a>\u00a0from the air, while other politicians and Hollywood notables\u00a0condemned\u00a0ABC\u2019s decision<\/a>, calling it an attack on free speech.<\/p>\n On Tuesday night, Kimmel clapped back at Trump once again after Colbert asked him if his younger self could have imagined \u201cthe President of the United States would be celebrating your unemployment?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI mean, that son of a bitch,\u201d Kimmel responded. \u201cNo, I never imagined that we\u2019d ever have a president like this, and I hope we don\u2019t ever have another president like this again. I never even imagined there would ever be a situation in which the president of our country was celebrating hundreds of Americans losing their jobs. But somebody who took pleasure in that, that to me is the absolute opposite of what a leader of this country is supposed to be.\u201d<\/p>\n Best of The Hollywood Reporter<\/p>\n Sign up for THR’s Newsletter<\/a>. For the latest news, follow us on Facebook<\/a>, Twitter<\/a>, and Instagram<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Jimmy Kimmel stopped by his late-night friend Stephen Colbert\u2019s show for his first interview since Jimmy Kimmel Live!…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":188215,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[119676,64,63,134,4625,3869,427],"class_list":{"0":"post-188214","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tv","8":"tag-abc-executives","9":"tag-au","10":"tag-australia","11":"tag-entertainment","12":"tag-jimmy-kimmel","13":"tag-stephen-colbert","14":"tag-tv"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/188214","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=188214"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/188214\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/188215"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=188214"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=188214"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=188214"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}