Jimmy Kimmel will return to ABC on Tuesday night, the Walt Disney Co. said.
The move follows conversations between the two sides to figure out how to defuse the situation that began with Kimmel’s comments in the aftermath of the shooting death of conservative activist Charlie Kirk.
“Last Wednesday, we made the decision to suspend production on the show to avoid further inflaming a tense situation at an emotional moment for our country,” the company said in a statement. “It is a decision we made because we felt some of the comments were ill-timed and thus insensitive.”
“We have spent the last days having thoughtful conversations with Jimmy, and after those conversations, we reached the decision to return the show on Tuesday.”
Kimmel’s representatives did not immediately comment, but the breakthrough comes as free speech protests grew loud and some consumers, including radio personality Howard Stern, announced they had canceled their Disney+ subscriptions to lodge their dismay.
The Kimmel suspension put Disney executives in the center of the nation’s divisive politics and the debate over free speech.
At a protest outside the El Capitan Theatre on Monday, one demonstrator hoisted a hand-made sign saying: “The Mouse is a Cowardly Louse.”
The late-night program has been dark since Wednesday, when the Disney-owned ABC network announced in a terse statement that it will be “preempted indefinitely.” The move followed decisions by two major owners of ABC affiliate stations to drop the show because of Kimmel’s remarks about the suspect in Kirk’s shooting death.
On last Monday’s show, Kimmel seemed to suggest during his monologue that Tyler Robinson, the Utah man accused in the shooting death of Kirk, might have been a pro-Trump Republican. He said MAGA supporters “are 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.”
Donald Trump supporters were livid. The remarks prompted a widespread conservative backlash on social media, including demands for Kimmel’s firing. Kimmel, who has expressed sympathy for Kirk’s family online, has not yet commented.
Anger was building within the creative community over Kimmel’s removal, which Federal Communications Commission Chairman Brendan Carr called for during a podcast interview that aired on Wednesday.
Carr said if action was not taken against Kimmel, there could be consequences for the TV stations that carry his show.
But some Republicans, including Sen. Ted Cruz, a Republican of Texas, had suggested that Carr went too far, giving Disney an opening to try to balance two constituencies in a bid to shore up the network’s principles and First Amendment rights.
Meg James
Los Angeles Times
(TNS)
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