Now That Jimmy Kimmel Has Been Pulled Off the Air, It's Time for Hollywood to Grow a Spine

Since industry executives won't stand up to Trump, stars need to speak out and make some noise

Jimmy Kimmel. (Disney/Mark Seliger)

First they came for Stephen Colbert, and Hollywood did not speak out.

Then they came for Jimmy Kimmel, and Hollywood did not speak out.

Who’s next? And will anyone in the entertainment business do anything to stop it?

On Wednesday night, news broke that ABC would be “indefinitely suspending” Jimmy Kimmel Live!, the late-night talk show that has aired on the Disney-owned network for 23 years.

The network was bowing to direct pressure from Nexstar, a powerful affiliate group, and FCC chair Brendan Carr, a Trump loyalist who later celebrated the show’s suspension with a GIF from The Office. (Please, can we leave Michael Scott out of this?)

The comedian, who has been a vocal Trump critic for years, was yanked from the air for saying the following in his monologue Monday night:

We hit some new lows over the weekend with the MAGA gang 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. In between the finger-pointing, there was grieving.

Kimmel then set up a clip of Trump pivoting rapidly from a question about how he was handling Kirk’s death to tout construction on the new White House ballroom. On Tuesday’s show, Kimmel also said that, “many in MAGA-land are working very hard to capitalize on the murder of Charlie Kirk.”

Nothing Kimmel said made light of or condoned Kirk’s murder. In fact, last week on social media the host made an earnest plea for civility, writing it was “monstrous to shoot another human,” and sent love to the Kirk family.

But none of that matters. Even if Kimmel had said nothing about Kirk, it seems obvious that Carr would have found some other joke to object to, or would have used the regulatory power of the FCC to scare ABC into not renewing Kimmel’s contract (which is up at the end of the year).

It is also clear that Carr was doing the bidding of his boss, who openly called for ABC to cancel Kimmel after The Late Show With Stephen Colbert got the axe in July.

On Wednesday, Trump went a step further, urging NBC to ditch Jimmy Fallon and Seth Meyers, the last two men standing in broadcast late night. So far, the network hasn’t blinked, and both shows have Lorne Michaels as an executive producer. But there can be no doubt that everyone at 30 Rock is feeling spooked right now.

Even Jon Oliver’s Last Week Tonight, which airs on HBO and is not subject to the same oversight as broadcast shows, could be in peril. David Ellison, the billionaire nepo-baby who just acquired Paramount and is rapidly turning CBS News into a conservative news outlet, reportedly wants to buy WarnerDiscovery, which owns HBO.

As of now, Jon Stewart is still hosting The Daily Show, on Paramount-owned Comedy Central, once a week, but his contract is also up at the end of the year and even he has no idea what’s going to happen next.

The future of late night is very uncertain. But what is clear is that Hollywood suits aren’t going to save democracy. Kimmel was reportedly notified of the show’s pre-emption on Wednesday afternoon in a phone call from Disney Entertainment co-chairman Dana Walden, who had made the decision with Disney CEO Bob Iger, a man once floated as a Democratic presidential candidate. According to Rolling Stone, multiple executives involved in emergency meetings Wednesday between Disney, ABC, and Nexstar believed Kimmel “had not actually said anything over the line,” but were scared of Trump retaliation anyway.

As we’ve seen in the eight interminable months since Trump took office, the media tycoons and tech oligarchs who now control the vast majority of the American entertainment industry will do virtually anything to appease the president, including paying millions to settle nuisance lawsuits, engaging in public bootlicking, torching once-revered news institutions, and throwing their biggest stars—no matter how beloved or long-standing—under the MAGA bus.

But Hollywood is made up of much more than a bunch of executives, which is why it is incumbent on the rest of the industry to grow a spine—particularly the stars with the deepest pockets, the biggest platforms, and the least to lose by speaking up.

So far, the most fervent industry response has come from the Hollywood labor unions. The Writers Guild was first out of the gate with a statement saying, “The right to speak our minds and to disagree with each other—to disturb, even—is at the very heart of what it means to be a free people. It is not to be denied. Not by violence, not by the abuse of governmental power, nor by acts of corporate cowardice.”

On Thursday, the DGA, SAG-AFTRA, IATSE, and the AFM followed suit with a joint statement which called the suspension “part of a disturbing trend of increasing interference in creative expression. This kind of political pressure on broadcasters and artists chills free speech and threatens the livelihoods of thousands of working Americans.”

The statement also shrewdly pointed out that taking Kimmel off the air is yet another hit for Hollywood workers “at a time when America’s film and television industry is still struggling due to globalization and industry contraction.”

Some of Kimmel’s comedy peers have also spoken up, including Marc Maron, Wanda Sykes (who was on her way to appear as a guest on the show Wednesday), Mike Birbiglia, and W. Kamau Bell, who said that “rich white men” like Kimmel are “the canary in the coal mine of American capitalism.” Jean Smart, who plays a late-night comedian on Hacks (one who faced corporate pressure to stay silent on a controversial issue in the most recent season), also expressed dismay. “What is happening to our country?” she asked.

Colbert’s show was already taping by the time the Kimmel story broke Wednesday, but it seems almost certain he will say something on Thursday’s Late Show. And one can only imagine what the team at Last Week Tonight is cooking up. (Accepting an Emmy Sunday night, LWT writer Daniel O’Brien said the show’s staff shared the award with “all writers of late-night political comedy while that is still a type of show that’s allowed to exist.”) Strangely silent, at least so far, are many of the comedians who have complained most vocally about “cancel culture.”

Damon Lindelof, the influential writer-producer-director who co-created Lost, said that if Kimmel’s suspension isn’t lifted, “I can’t in good conscience work for the company that imposed it.”

But so far, few other big stars have indicated that they will boycott or refuse to work with Disney.

Disney, of course, controls much much more than just ABC. The vast conglomerate includes Marvel Studios, Pixar, Lucasfilm, Hulu, a majority stake of ESPN, FX, National Geographic, Disney+, theme parks around the world, and a booming theatrical division behind Broadway hits like The Lion King.

The company holds the keys to some of the most valuable franchises in popular culture, from the Marvel Cinematic Universe to Frozen to Star Wars (including Andor, the Emmy-winning Star Wars prequel that is quite literally about resistance to authoritarian rule).

Disney is a magnet for the biggest actors, writers, directors, and producers in the business (many of whom are politically outspoken). Big names associated with the MCU alone include Pedro Pascal, Florence Pugh, Kumail Nanjiani, Robert Downey, Jr, Mark Ruffalo, Tom Holland, Chris Hemsworth, the Russo Brothers, and dozens of other A-list talent.

Toy Story 5 is scheduled for release next year, with “destructive, woke” Tom Hanks reprising his role as Woody.

Mega producer Ryan Murphy, known for his star-studded dramas and inclusive storytelling, left a lucrative deal with Netflix to make TV for Disney in 2023 and has dozens of shows in the pipeline at any given moment. Lin-Manuel Miranda has made numerous movies with Disney, including the recent Mufasa and the upcoming live-action remake of Moana, starring superstar Dwayne Johnson.

I could go on for much, much, longer, but you get the point: Disney is a marquee entertainment brand with global recognition and pretty much anyone with a viable Hollywood career will work with Disney at some point. But it is nothing without the artists who write, direct, and perform in its movies and television shows or the stars who dutifully walk the red carpet at splashy premieres.

So maybe they just…shouldn’t do that?

If any of these artists wanted to make a statement in support of Kimmel, they could start by posting on social media. Better yet, they could refuse to work with Disney in the future, or decline to promote the projects they’ve already made with the company. If regular people are willing to cancel their Disney+ subscriptions—and cut off their kids’ access to Bluey—then surely big Hollywood stars can do even more. Unlike the hundreds of staffers at The Late Show and Jimmy Kimmel Live who will soon be out of work, the cast of Avengers: Doomsday can afford to take a hit.

Trump has demonstrated that he is hellbent on destroying or completely overhauling the country’s most cherished cultural institutions, from the Kennedy Center to PBS to late-night television. Even before Trump’s return to office, the entertainment industry was in a deep existential crisis, thanks to changing business models, rampant cost-cutting, and an endless stream of media mergers.

If Disney won’t stand up for one of its more recognizable, loyal stars—the guy who goes on stage every May at the company’s upfront presentation in New York and charms an audience full of advertisers—then everyone is vulnerable. What’s at stake now is not just the fate of a single late-night show, it’s the future of the entire industry.

Meredith Blake is the culture columnist for The Contrarian