By Alyssa Cortes
TAMPA, Fla. — Late-night host of Jimmy Kimmel Live, Jimmy Kimmel, was suspended by ABC and its parent company, Disney, for comments made about the death of Charlie Kirk.
Disney, after being threatened by the Trump administration and the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) with the possible revocation of their broadcasting license, suspended the show on Sept. 17, 2025, and reinstated it a few days later. This suspension caused an uproar over whether it was a violation of the First Amendment right.
Over the past year, the relationship between the media and the Trump administration has been strained. Last December, ABC settled a lawsuit with Donald Trump over host George Stephanopoulos’ comment on air about Trump’s liability for the rape of writer E. Jean Carroll in 1996. Additionally, Jimmy Kimmel and other late-night hosts have been long-time critics of the Trump administration, which has made them targets of the right-wing for the past decade.
On July 17, 2025, CBS announced the cancellation of The Late Show with Stephen Colbert. Many, including Colbert himself, claimed Paramount wanted to appease the FCC. The FCC is under the Executive branch, which allows the President to control the approval or denial of media company mergers. A few days after the cancellation of The Late Show, Trump took to Truth Social to threaten both Kimmel and Jimmy Fallon.
After the killing of Charlie Kirk on Sept. 10, 2025, the days following had many officials blaming the “radical left” for influencing the alleged shooter. On the morning of Sept. 15, Kimmel and his writers wrote the show’s opening monologue, which would be recorded in the afternoon, before premiering that night around 11:35 p.m. At the point of the taping, no other details had been released about the alleged shooter.
“We 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,” Kimmel said on the Sept. 15 taping.
“My main takeaway from the episode was the clips shown of the President’s reaction to the shooting,” said Cassandra Miller, a junior philosophy major at the University of Tampa. “I was really confused by what Jimmy Kimmel said that warranted his removal from these statements.”
“I understand that some may have felt it was too soon to make any sort of commentary on the event, but that’s literally the job of the press,” said Miller. “[Freedom of Speech is] a key part of our culture to allow civic dissent; when that starts to be censored, we lose the ‘freedom’ that’s key to American identity.”
Conservative media criticized the late-night host for being insensitive.
“Look, we can do this the easy way or the hard way,” said the FCC chairman, Brendan Carr, on right-wing podcast, The Benny Show, hosted by Benny Johnson. “These companies can find ways to change conduct, to take action on Kimmel or, you know, there’s going to be additional work for the FCC ahead.”
On Sept. 17, ABC and the Walt Disney Company suspended Kimmel’s show indefinitely. Trump congratulated the companies’ decision on Truth Social.
While some believe Kimmel was rightfully suspended, others supported Kimmel’s right to express his opinion and were confused by the suspension.
“I was a little confused as to why this particular comment about Charlie Kirk prompted the network to take him off air,” said Kennedy Gilbert, a junior journalism major at UTampa. “Obviously, in my opinion, the comments were completely uncalled for, but we do have free speech, and there are many who will say that Jimmy Kimmel was just exercising that right.”
This decision created an uproar on the internet, with support from celebrities and politicians flooding in. Many questioned whether this decision violated Kimmel’s Freedom of Speech, protected by the First Amendment.
Grace Bennett, a senior journalism major at UTampa, said, “I was very shocked because I thought a lot of the point of late-night TV shows was to slightly roast people, so his getting fired over a political joke is really baffling to me.”
“I know that since Disney is technically a private company, they can make their own calls,” said Bennett. “But when a government official like the FCC Chair starts threatening to pull broadcast licenses over a comedy monologue, it brings forth other conversations of our First Amendment rights.”
The Supreme Court case of Bantam Books, Inc. v. Sullivan in 1963 ruled that even if a government agency verbally pressures a media organization to censor itself, even the lightest implication amounts to a violation of the First Amendment. This case was recently upheld by the current lineup of the Supreme Court in 2024.
On Sept. 22, Disney reinstated Jimmy Kimmel Live, releasing a statement to USA TODAY.
According to Disney, the decision to suspend Jimmy Kimmel Live was to prevent adding to the tension during an emotional and sensitive time within the country.
“It is a decision we made because we felt some of the comments were ill-timed and thus insensitive,” said Disney. “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.”
On Sept. 23, Jimmy Kimmel Live aired with Kimmel addressing his return in an over 28-minute monologue.
“I want to thank the people who don’t support my show and what I believe, but support my right to share those beliefs anyway,” said Kimmel in his return monologue, which has over 21 million views on YouTube in two days.
Despite not airing in 23 percent of the country, due to Nexstar and Sinclair’s refusal, the episode drew in more than six million viewers, the largest-watched episode in the show’s over two-decade history, excluding some specialty episodes.
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Photo courtesy of Mateusz Kudła, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
