Hollywood stars, unions, and fans have criticized Disney’s ABC for indefinitely pulling “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” off the air after pressure from the Federal Communications Commission over his comments about the death of Charlie Kirk.
Kimmel criticized Republicans and the MAGA movement in his monologue Monday night, and ABC announced it was pulling the show off the air Wednesday, hours after FCC chair Brendan Carr threatened to “take action.”
The move drew praise from President Donald Trump and fellow Republicans. But Hollywood, where Kimmel is popular as a frequent host of the Oscars and Emmys, leapt to his defense.
“This isn’t right,” Ben Stiller said in a post on X. Actor Jamie Lee Curtis, who had spoken emotionally about Kirk’s death, shared an image of Kimmel and a supportive quote on Instagram.
Comedian Wanda Sykes also said in an Instagram video that while Trump had not brokered an end to the wars in Gaza or Ukraine, “he did end freedom of speech within his first year.”
Actress Jean Smart shared a picture of her with Kimmel on Instagram and said she was “horrified” by the show’s cancellation.
“What Jimmy said was FREE speech, not hate speech. People seem to only want to protect free speech when it suits THEIR agenda,” she said.
Comedian Michael Kosta, a rotating host on Comedy Central’s “The Daily Show,” said on his Instagram story Wednesday night: “This is a serious moment in American history. TV networks MUST push back. This is complete BS.”
Unions representing writers and actors — The Writers Guild of America, The American Federation of Musicians and the Screen Actors Guild–American Federation of Television and Radio Artists — condemned the show’s indefinite cancellation as an attack on free speech.
Tommy Williams was just about to walk in to see the filming of Wednesday’s edition of the show — only to find out it had been canceled.
“They waited to pull the plug on this right as the studio audience was about to walk in,” he told The Associated Press news agency. He said he wasn’t at all aware of Kimmel’s comments on Kirk.
“Then I went to go look to see what those comments were and they didn’t really seem to justify, you know, the means, you know, it seemed to be a bit extreme.”
Comedian, actor, and podcaster Marc Maron used his Instagram account to call on free speech advocates to speak out against the pulling of Kimmel’s show.
“If you have any concern or belief in real freedom or the constitution and free speech, this is it,” he said. “This is the deciding moment, this is what authoritarianism looks like in this country, it’s happening.”
Josh Gad called out ABC parent company Disney on Threads, telling the company, “this ain’t it” with a link to the news of Kimmel’s show being pulled off the air.
“I see we are at the passive participation of authoritarianism now,” Gad said in another post. “God help us all.”
Henry Winkler, instead of going after ABC’s decision, lauded Kimmel, calling him the “most wonderful fellow” in a post on X.
“His humor, his insights are important to keep showing us who we are,” Winkler wrote.
Kathy Griffin, who has her own troubled history with Trump, said, “It is very important to have Jimmy Kimmel’s back right now,” and encouraged her Instagram followers to “Be vocal.”
Comedian Alex Edelman said on X that “This is the actual cancel culture everyone claims to hate so much.”
Rosie O’Donnell called the move “unacceptable” in an Instagram post and said corporate executives are “bowing to the orange monster — america is no more.”
Actor and comedian Mike Birbiglia called on fellow comedians to “call out the insanity of pulling Kimmel off the air.”
“I’ve spent a lot of time in public and private defending comedians I don’t agree with,” Birbiglia wrote. He said if people don’t call out Kimmel’s forced hiatus, “don’t bother spouting off about free speech anymore.”
The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, a nonprofit based in Philadelphia, said on X that the FCC’s Carr had abused his position and had spuriously invoked the public interest standard to “selectively target speech the government dislikes.
Earlier, FIRE said on X, “The government pressured ABC — and ABC caved.”
The outrage over ABC’s decision looked set to spill over into the streets Thursday afternoon with a protest planned outside the El Capitan Entertainment Center in Hollywood, where “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” is filmed, organized by the group Refuse Fascism.
Public figures outside of Hollywood
Those outside of Hollywood, including politicians and news figures, also took issue with ABC pulling Kimmel off the air, including a group of Democratic leaders releasing a statement calling for Carr to “resign immediately” after engaging in a “corrupt abuse of power.”
“He has disgraced the office he holds by bullying ABC, the employer of Jimmy Kimmel, and forcing the company to bend the knee to the Trump administration,” said the statement from Rep. Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y.; Rep. Katherine Clark, D-Mass.; Rep. Pete Aguilar, D-Calif.; Rep. Ted Lieu, D-Calif.; Rep. Joe Neguse, D-Colo.; and Rep. Suzan DelBene, D-Wash.
The group also called out the Trump Administration, saying that its “war on the First Amendment is blatantly inconsistent with American values.”
Former President Barack Obama called out the Trump administration, which he said “has taken it to a new and dangerous level by routinely threatening regulatory action against media companies unless they muzzle or fire reporters and commentators it doesn’t like.”
Journalist Don Lemon wrote on Threads that “This should send a chill down everyone’s spine in America,” alongside a video of himself in which he said he doesn’t think what Kimmel said was all that controversial.
“This is a very dangerous and scary moment for America,” Lemon continued.
Rep. Jasmine Crockett, D-Texas, on X said “the first amendment is out the window” after Kimmel hurt “MAGA’s feelings by holding a mirror up.”
“NO OUTRAGE, let alone coverage, because you only value certain lives & certain speech,” Crockett said, accusing conservative media of picking and choosing which recent American killings to focus on.
Rep. Cory Booker, D-N.J., shared his opinion on Instagram by simply sharing a part of the text of the First Amendment in a post.
MSNBC host Chris Hayes put it plainly in a post on X: “This is the most straightforward attack on free speech from state actors I’ve ever seen in my life and it’s not even close.”
California Gov. Gavin Newsom took a different angle in responding to the news, instead going after Carr and his past social media posts.
“This aged well,” Newsom wrote on X, with a screenshot of a past post of Carr’s that championed free speech. A number of his past social media posts supporting First Amendment rights came to light on Thursday, prompting blowback toward the FCC Chair.
Those on the right cheer ABC’s decision
On Thursday morning, Vice President J.D. Vance took to X to jokingly congratulate Secretary of State Marco Rubio, “the new host of ABC’s late night show!” without commenting further on Kimmel’s suspension.
Barstool Sports founder Dave Portnoy, who has traditionally leaned conservative when it comes to politics, discussed cancel culture in social media posts following the Kimmel news, and said he didn’t think what happened falls in that category.
“When a person says something that a ton of people find offensive, rude, dumb in real time and then that person is punished for it that’s not cancel culture,” Portnoy said on X. “That is consequences for your actions.”
House Speaker Mike Johnson on Thursday said he doesn’t know anything about ABC’s decision to suspend Kimmel and said, “It doesn’t have anything to do with Congress.”
“What I do know is that ABC is a private company, and they can make their own choices on who they want to wear their brand, so to speak. So this is a matter of ABC’s leadership,” Johnson said.
Conservative voice Benny Johnson said on X that Kimmel “lied about Charlie Kirk’s assassination, blamed him for his own murder, and mocked him on air,” adding, “The line was crossed.”
“Thanks to FCC pressure and Nexstar and Sinclair pulling him from millions of homes, his platform is destroyed. He’s finished. Will never recover,” Johnson said. “This isn’t cancel culture. This is CONSEQUENCE culture. For Charlie Kirk.”
ESPN host Stephen A. Smith asked, “Where was the joke?” referring to the comments Kimmel made that apparently got the late-night host pulled off air.
There “wasn’t anything funny about that,” he said.
