As Jimmy Kimmel Stay! faces an unsure destiny at ABC, Conan O’Brien is criticizing the community’s resolution to take host Jimmy Kimmel off air for his Charle Kirk feedback.
“The suspension of @jimmykimmel and the promise to silence different Late Night time hosts for criticizing the administration ought to disturb everybody on the Proper, Left, and Middle,” O’Brien, the previous host of late-night exhibits Late Night time, The Tonight Present, and Conan, wrote on X on Friday. “It’s mistaken and anybody with a conscience is aware of it’s mistaken.”
The suspension of @jimmykimmel and the promise to silence different Late Night time hosts for criticizing the administration ought to disturb everybody on the Proper, Left, and Middle. It’s mistaken and anybody with a conscience is aware of it’s mistaken.
— Conan O’Brien (@ConanOBrien) September 19, 2025
ABC suspended Kimmel on Wednesday over feedback he made about Kirk, the slain conservative activist, on Monday’s episode of Jimmy Kimmel Stay! “We hit some new lows over the weekend with the MAGA gang desperately attempting to characterize this child who murdered Charlie Kirk as something apart from considered one of them, and doing all the things they will to attain political factors from it,” Kimmel mentioned through the present.
These feedback spurred backlash from conservatives and from Brendan Carr, the Trump-appointed chair of the Federal Communications Fee, per The New York Instances. And on Wednesday, Nexstar Media Group introduced it might pull Kimmel’s present from its 32 ABC affiliate stations, and later that day, ABC paused the present.
Different late-night hosts, previous and current, have spoken out about ABC’s remedy of Kimmel as properly. “That is distress,” former Late Present host David Letterman mentioned at The Atlantic Competition on Thursday. “We see the place that is all going, right? It’s managed media. And it’s no good. It’s foolish. It’s ridiculous. And you may’t go round firing someone since you’re fearful or attempting to suck as much as an authoritarian, legal administration within the Oval Workplace. That’s simply not how this works.”
Stephen Colbert, in the meantime, referred to as the suspension “blatant censorship” throughout his present on Thursday. “With an autocrat, you can not give an inch, and if ABC thinks that that is going to fulfill the regime, they’re woefully naïve,” mentioned the presentLate Present host, who’s shedding his job subsequent yearin what some critics consider was a political resolution from CBS. “To Jimmy, I stand you and your workers 100%.”
And Jay Leno, former Tonight Present host, advised reporters on Thursday that he’s on Kimmel’s facet. “You don’t get canceled saying common issues,” he mentioned. “Often, it’s the reality that winds up getting canceled, so we’ll see what occurs.”