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Jimmy Kimmel’s fellow late night hosts have condemned the decision to “indefinitely” suspend the host over comments about Charlie Kirk’s fatal shooting.
Thursday night (18 September) saw the likes of Stephen Colbert, Jon Stewart, Seth Meyers and Jimmy Fallon all defiantly jump to Kimmel’s defence, with Colbert calling it “blatant censorship” and Fallon saying he “hopes he comes back”.
ABC pulled Kimmel’s show this week over comments he made during his opening monologue two days prior in which he made implications about the suspected gunman’s political leanings.
Colbert began his show by saying he “100 per cent” stands with the star. “With an autocrat, you cannot give an inch,” he added. “If ABC thinks this is going to satisfy the regime, they are woefully naive.”
The 61-year-old said Kimmel’s show was “yanked off air” shortly after FCC chairman Brendan Carr said that Kimmel’s remarks were “truly sick”.
“This decision came after senior executives at ABC, Disney and affiliates convened emergency meetings, during which multiple execs felt that Kimmel had not actually said anything over the line, but the threat of Trump administration retaliation loomed. As one source at ABC put it, ‘They were p***ing themselves all day,’” Colbert said, citing a Rolling Stone article.
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Jimmy Kimmel’s late-night show has been indefinitely pulled (ABC)
Meyers said on his NBC Show: “Trump promised to end government censorship and bring back free speech, and he’s doing the opposite, and it has experts worried that we are rapidly devolving into repressive autocracy in the style of Russia or Hungary, much faster than anyone could have predicted.”
“I wake up every day, I count my blessings that I live in a country that at least purports to value freedom of speech, and we’re gonna keep doing our show the way we’ve always done it, with enthusiasm and integrity,” he added.
On The Tonight Show, Fallon joked that he “woke up to 100 messages from my dad saying, ‘sorry they cancelled your show.'”
The 51-year-old went on: “To be honest with you all, I don’t know what is going on. And no one does. But I do know Jimmy Kimmel and he is a decent, funny and loving guy, and I hope he comes back.”
Elsewhere, Jon Stewart took a different approach, introducing himself as a “patriotically obedient host” and performing a satirical monologue about free speech, in which he called The Daily Show “fun, hilarious, administration-compliant”.
In a rare mid-week edition of his show, Stewart said: “I don’t know who this ‘Johnny Drimmel Live’ ABC character is, but the point is, our great administration has laid out very clear rules on free speech.
“Some naysayers may argue that this administration’s speech concerns are merely a cynical ploy, a thin gruel of a ruse, a smoke screen to obscure an unprecedented consolidation of power and unitary intimidation, principleless and coldly antithetical to any experiment in a constitutional republic governance,” he said.
He then referred to Trump as “father” and “dear leader” as he jokingly praised the president and his recent state trip to the UK.
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Stephen Colbert, Jon Stewart and Jimmy Fallon react to Jimmy Kimmel’s suspension (NBC/CBS/Comedy Central)
Kimmel’s suspension has received widespread condemnation with former president Barack Obama criticising the Trump administration for “threatening regulatory action against media companies”.
Former talk show host and comedian David Letterman said that the move was silly and ridiculous. “You can’t go around firing somebody because you’re fearful or trying to suck up to an authoritarian criminal administration in the Oval Office. That’s just not how this works,” he told The Atlantic.
FormerTonight Show host Jay Leno also weighed in on the decision. “It’s a comedian talking. If you don’t like it, don’t watch it,” he told CBS. “I enjoy Jimmy. I like all the guys. I think they’re really talented. I like jokes, that’s why I watch them.”