Legends of late-night US television have shared their take on Jimmy Kimmel being pulled off air ‘indefinitely’, as the move ignites a firestorm of backlash.
Stephen Colbert, Jimmy Fallon, David Letterman and Seth Meyers have all spoken out about their late-night slot ‘colleague’ being ripped from the public airwaves over his comments regarding the killing of MAGA activist and Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk.
Colbert, who hosts The Late Show with Stephen Colbert on CBS and Paramount+, said his network wouldn’t have taken him off air. “I’ll say this for my network. They wouldn’t have done this,” Colbert said before his episode taping.
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“Now, regardless of what you think, that has already been done and how that looks, this is weak. This is blatant censorship.”
In his opening monologue on Thursday, he said: “With an autocrat, you can not give an inch, and if ABC thinks that this is going to satisfy the regime, they are woefully naive.”
Colbert’s show, like Kimmel’s, has been in US President Donald Trump’s firing line before. After CBS, owned by Paramount Global, settled with Mr Trump for $US16 million ($24 million) over a 60 Minutes episode. The episode, featuring former Vice President Kamala Harris, was “deceptively edited” according to Mr Trump.
Colbert criticised the large settlement, and three days later, CBS announced his show would be cancelled due to “financial reasons”.
Fallon, host of The Tonight Show on NBC, said in his opening monologue on Thursday night: “To be honest with you all, I don’t know what’s going on.”
“No one does. But I do know Jimmy Kimmel, and he’s a decent, funny and loving guy, and I hope he comes back.”
He went on to speak about Mr Trump’s trip to the UK, with a voice-over interrupting him to say the US President looked “incredibly handsome” and was deserving of the Nobel Peace Prize.
Letterman, who hosted The Late Show with David Letterman on CBS from 1993 to 2015, said media companies can’t be “fearful” of “authoritarian criminal administration”
“My good friend Jimmy Kimmel,” he said at The Atlantic Festival in New York.
“I just, I feel bad about this because we all see where this is going, correct?
“It’s managed media and it’s no good. It’s silly; it’s ridiculous; and 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.”
Meyers, who Mr Trump says should be fired, said he has “always admired and respected Mr Trump”, on Thursday night’s show, adding: “If you’ve ever seen me say anything negative about him, that’s just AI.”
After some jokes, the Late Night with Seth Meyers host said: “It is a privilege and honour to call Jimmy Kimmel my friend, in the same way that it is a privilege and honour to do this show every night.”
“This is a pivotal point in our democracy, and we must all stand up for the principles of free expression.”
As the US and the rest of the world appear to take sides over the “indefinite” suspension of Kimmel, thousands have taken to social media saying they have or they will cancel their subscriptions to Disney+, the streaming service of ABC’s parent company Disney.
What did Jimmy Kimmel say about Charlie Kirk?
During Kimmel’s opening monologue on Monday night’s show, the host spoke of Kirk’s death and 22-year-old Tyler Robinson who has been charged with aggravated murder following the assassination.
“We hit some new lows over the weekend with the MAGA gang desperately trying to characterise this kid who murdered Charlie Kirk as anything other than one of them and doing everything they can to score political points from it,” he said.
“In between the finger-pointing, there was grieving.”
The comedian then showed clips of Mr Trump being asked about how he is holding up after Kirk’s death.
“I think very good, and by the way, right there where you see all the trucks, they just started construction of the new ballroom for the White House,” Mr Trump replied, adding the new ballroom at the White House will “be a beauty.”
As the camera cuts back to Kimmel, he said: “Yes, he’s at the fourth stage of grief: construction.”
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