{"id":64542,"date":"2025-10-07T05:55:16","date_gmt":"2025-10-07T05:55:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/64542\/"},"modified":"2025-10-07T05:55:16","modified_gmt":"2025-10-07T05:55:16","slug":"kennedy-center-president-rips-jimmy-kimmels-one-sided-late-night-programming","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/64542\/","title":{"rendered":"Kennedy Center president rips Jimmy Kimmel’s one-sided late-night programming"},"content":{"rendered":"

Kennedy Center President\u00a0Ric Grenell<\/a>\u00a0blamed Jimmy Kimmel\u2019s one-sided rhetoric for his temporary late-night TV suspension on Saturday at the Kennedy Center Gala benefiting the National Symphony Orchestra (NSO).<\/p>\n

Both Sinclair and Nexstar announced last week they would resume airing \u201cJimmy Kimmel Live!<\/a>\u201d after sidelining the program due to the comedian\u2019s comments about Charlie Kirk\u2019s alleged assassin, which attempted to link him to the MAGA movement.<\/p>\n

Grenell said Disney made a necessary business decision by benching the late-night host.<\/p>\n

\u201cLook, I think from the beginning Disney made decisions because Jimmy was losing tens of millions of dollars every year,\u201d Grenell said in a red carpet interview with\u00a0Fox News Digital, although the show\u2019s exact financial worth when taking into account its online presence is unknown. \u201cAnd I don\u2019t think we should have DEI programming just because people are afraid of political blowback.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYou should be able to make decisions\u2026 We just saw this week The New York Times highlight how Broadway is dying,\u201d he continued. \u201cPeople are not buying tickets. We\u2019ve got to do something in the offset to change that trajectory. And I think studios, and broadcast studios, anyone who\u2019s involved in entertainment, has to be able to bring programming that people want.\u201d<\/p>\n

In\u00a0the report Grenell referenced<\/a>, \u201cThe Broadway musical is in trouble,\u201d the paper noted that all 18 commercial musicals that opened on Broadway last season have yet to turn a profit.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Kennedy Center President\u00a0Ric Grenell\u00a0took aim at Jimmy Kimmel\u2019s one-sided rhetoric on Saturday. AP<\/p>\n

\u201cThe new musicals \u2018Tammy Faye,\u2019 \u2018Boop!\u2019 and \u2018Smash\u2019 each cost at least $20 million to bring to the stage, and each was gone less than four months after opening,\u201d according to the Times. \u201cAll three lost their entire investments.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Times suggested rising production costs are partly to blame for Broadway\u2019s challenges, while Grenell pointed to Kimmel\u2019s \u201cone-sided\u201d humor as the reason his late-night show has struggled.<\/p>\n

\u201cLet\u2019s be honest,\u201d Grenell said. \u201cEverybody knows that Jimmy Kimmel is losing money because he has guests that are just one side of the aisle. All his jokes are on one side of the aisle. And you\u2019re just not going to make money when you take 50 percent of the customers off the table.\u201d<\/p>\n

Grenell added that the Kennedy Center had similar struggles before his tenure. While the current leadership has not canceled any performances under his watch,\u00a0several artists<\/a>\u00a0have chosen to bow out since the so-called \u201cTrump takeover.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cJimmy was losing tens of millions of dollars every year,\u201d Grenell said in a red carpet interview. Bloomberg via Getty Images<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd so we want to have a very strong message that says everyone is welcome here,\u201d Grenell said. \u201cWe have not canceled a single show. There have been some who have walked away because they don\u2019t want to perform for Republicans. I say shame on that intolerance. Everyone should be welcome here, and we should not care who you voted for.\u201d<\/p>\n

Kennedy Center board member Mary Helen Bowers, who joined the board in 2020 under President\u00a0Donald Trump<\/a>, said she wasn\u2019t a fan of Kimmel\u2019s controversial comments but also cited finances as the impetus for his suspension.<\/p>\n

\u201cWell, I thought his comments were disgusting and vile and Charlie Kirk is a great hero,\u201d Bowers told Fox News Digital. \u201cBut I think that, from my understanding of it, if his numbers were bad, and he wasn\u2019t performing, then he shouldn\u2019t be on the air.\u201d<\/p>\n

Kimmel was suspended following inflammatory comments he made about slain activist Charlie Kirk on his late-night show. AP<\/p>\n

Fox News Digital has reached out to Disney for comment.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe focus is on pleasing the audience,\u201d Bowers said of the current Kennedy Center leadership. \u201cAnd that\u2019s what the arts is really about. It\u2019s about creating beauty and creating a great experience, but with Grenell\u2019s leadership, he\u2019s very focused on the bottom line and the financial health of the center, which is tremendously important, especially in this time.\u201d<\/p>\n

The NSO is celebrating its 95th anniversary season. Featured works at Saturday\u2019s concert included Aaron Copland\u2019s \u201cFanfare for the Common Man,\u201d Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov\u2019s \u201cCapriccio Espagnol\u201d and Piotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky\u2019s \u201cPiano Concerto No.1.\u201d The Kennedy Center Gala raised a total of $3.45 million, nearly triple what the NSO has raised in previous years. About half of those in attendance were first-time Gala guests.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Kennedy Center President\u00a0Ric Grenell\u00a0blamed Jimmy Kimmel\u2019s one-sided rhetoric for his temporary late-night TV suspension on Saturday at the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":64543,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[93,61,60,3484,16720,1634,44111,44112,282],"class_list":{"0":"post-64542","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tv","8":"tag-entertainment","9":"tag-ie","10":"tag-ireland","11":"tag-jimmy-kimmel","12":"tag-kennedy-center","13":"tag-media","14":"tag-nexstar-broadcasting","15":"tag-sinclair-broadcasting","16":"tag-tv"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64542","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=64542"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64542\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/64543"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=64542"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=64542"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=64542"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}