The late night talk show community is sticking together, with Stephen Colbert publicly expressing support for Jimmy Kimmel after his show Jimmy Kimmel Live! was pulled off the air.
“I’m your host, Stephen Colbert,” the comedian, 61, began during the Thursday, September 18, episode of The Late Show. “But tonight, we are all Jimmy Kimmel.”
Colbert went on to devote his entire monologue to the Kimmel situation and slammed ABC for capitulating to FCC chairman Brendan Carr, whom he described as an “individually wrapped hard-boiled egg that they sell at the airport.”
“If ABC thinks that this is gonna satisfy the regime, they’re woefully naive,” he said. “This is blatant censorship. … With an autocrat, you cannot give an inch. Jimmy, I stand with you and your staff 100 percent.”
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Later in the segment, Colbert brought out the Emmy he won on Sunday, September 14, and joked, “You couldn’t let me enjoy this for just one week? Come on!”
“This whole thing is the latest and boldest action in a long campaign against media critics,” he added. “Trump has personally sued ABC, CBS, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Des Moines Register and his bathroom scale.”
When Colbert read Trump’s Truth Social post urging NBC to cancel Jimmy Fallon and Seth Meyers‘ shows next, the studio audience could be heard booing loudly.
After the first commercial break, Colbert quipped, “Welcome back to The Late Show. Are we still on the air? Apparently Brendan Carr has not seen tonight’s episode yet.”
Earlier this week, Jimmy Kimmel Live! was taken off the air by ABC in response to backlash over Kimmel’s comments about Charlie Kirk. A network spokesperson told Us Weekly on Wednesday, September 17, that the show would be “preempted indefinitely.”
Variety reported that Nexstar Media threatened to remove Jimmy Kimmel Live! from its lineup, prompting the decision by ABC.
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Nexstar told the outlet its “owned and partner television stations affiliated with the ABC Television Network” would preempt the show “for the foreseeable future,” starting with the Wednesday episode.
The company noted it “strongly objects to recent comments made by Mr. Kimmel concerning the killing of Charlie Kirk and will replace the show with other programming in its ABC-affiliated markets.”
Nexstar’s statement referred to Kimmel’s Monday, September 15, monologue remarks about Kirk’s September 10 shooting death and allegations surrounding the conservative commentator’s accused killer, Tyler Robinson.
Kimmel, 57, claimed conservatives reached “new lows” by attempting to link Robinson to far-left ideologies.
“The MAGA gang [is] 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,” he said. “In between the finger-pointing, there was grieving.”
After Kimmel’s show was pulled off the air, a source told Us that employees at Jimmy Kimmel Live! were “initially told that the suspension was just going to be for the rest of this week.” However, mixed messages led to uncertainty over the show’s future as “no one [knew what was] really going on.”
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The Jimmy Kimmel Live! ordeal comes two months after Colbert’s The Late Show With Stephen Colbert was abruptly canceled by CBS in July. While some accused the network of ending the show due to its host’s criticism of parent company Paramount’s $16 million settlement with President Donald Trump ahead of its merger with Skydance, CBS insisted in a statement at the time that the decision was purely a “financial” one and not “related in any way to the show’s performance, content or other matters happening at Paramount.”
Kimmel was among the late night hosts who rallied around Colbert after the news broke.
“Love you Stephen,” Kimmel wrote via his Instagram Story at the time. “F*** you and all your Sheldons CBS.”
Colbert drew a parallel between Kimmel’s suspension and The Late Show‘s cancellation during his monologue on Thursday, noting that Nexstar is in the process of its own merger that requires FCC approval. Nexstar denied earlier in the day that their decision to pull Kimmel’s show was related to Carr’s comments about Jimmy Kimmel Live!
