Late-night host Jimmy Kimmel shared a detailed account of the moment he discovered his ABC show, Jimmy Kimmel Live!, was pulled from the air “indefinitely.” Speaking on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert on Tuesday, Kimmel described the surprising phone call that led to the sudden suspension of his show just minutes before taping.
Kimmel, 57, explained that the incident took place around 3 p.m., an hour and a half before showtime. “I’m in my office typing away — as I usually do,” he said. “I get a phone call. It’s ABC. They say they want to talk to me.” Because his office lacked privacy, Kimmel took the call in the bathroom.
While on the call with ABC executives, Kimmel was told, “We want to take the temperature down. We’re concerned about what you’re going to say tonight, and we’ve decided that the best route is to take the show off the air.” The audience at Colbert’s show responded with loud boos, to which Kimmel responded, “That’s what I said. I started booing.”
Kimmel said he pushed back against the decision, telling the network he didn’t believe it was the right move, but the decision had already been made. He returned to his office to inform his executive producers, while the studio audience for that night’s show was already seated. The audience was eventually sent home.
After leaving the set, Kimmel said he was followed by paparazzi, including helicopters flying overhead. “We get to the house and we’re shaken,” he said. He described the chaos at home, sharing that his 11-year-old daughter offered to sell her toy “Labubus,” while his son ran around naked.
The show was pulled on September 17, shortly after Kimmel’s monologue addressed the death of right-wing political activist Charlie Kirk, who was fatally shot on September 10 at Utah Valley University. He was 31.
The Walt Disney Company later announced the show would return. In his emotional return, Kimmel clarified that there was “nothing funny” about Kirk’s death. Despite being preempted in 23% of U.S. TV households due to conflicts with Nexstar and Sinclair, the episode drew 6.26 million viewers.
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