ABC has said that it will not air the late-night talk show “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” for an unknown amount of time. This is because there has been a lot of anger on social media about presenter Jimmy Kimmel’s recent statements regarding the man who is thought to have killed conservative activist Charlie Kirk.
The fight started when Kimmel, who is 57 years old, said on a recent show that the suspect, Tyler Robinson, was connected to the “MAGA gang.” Kirk, a well-known supporter of Donald Trump, was shot and died while at an event in Utah.
A spokesperson for ABC told media, “‘Jimmy Kimmel Live’ will be pre-empted indefinitely.”
Nexstar, which owns or runs 24 ABC-affiliated stations, has already said it will replace the show with alternative programming. Andrew Alford, the head of Nexstar’s broadcasting division, told media that Kimmel’s remarks were “offensive and insensitive at a critical time in our national political discourse.” He went on to say that Nexstar “does not believe they reflect the spectrum of opinions, views, or values of the local communities in which we are located.”
Alford went on to say that it was “simply not in the public interest at the current time” to keep airing Kimmel’s show. The choice was taken “in an effort to let cooler heads prevail as we move toward the resumption of respectful, constructive dialogue.”
Responses and comparisons to Stephen Colbert online
People on social media are split about the news. Some people agreed with ABC’s choice, while others were angry about it. An X user compared it to the recent end of “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert.”
CBS said yesterday that Stephen Colbert’s show would cease in May 2026 after 33 years on the air. The network called the move “purely a financial decision against a challenging backdrop in late night [television].” CBS said that the cancellation had “nothing to do with the show’s performance, content, or anything else.”
People on the internet had different things to say about the Kimmel news. One person said, “I didn’t know he was still on the air. It looks like they finally gave him a reason to fire him and stop wasting money on a show that no one watches.” Someone else said Kimmel was “too arrogant to admit he was 100% wrong.” A fourth person made a bigger point by asking why Kimmel was taken off the air for what he said yet “politicians can say wild stuff every day without a commercial break.”