Before Disney announced Monday that Jimmy Kimmel would be returning to ABC, the dialogue about the indefinite pause on his late-night show had continued to heat up.
Protesters packed the Hollywood block where Kimmel’s show is taped and sounded off both online and in public displays since the announcement of the suspension last week, and a horde of actors, writers, musicians and artists made their opinions on the matter clear.
Tom Hanks, Jane Fonda, Meryl Streep, Robert De Niro, Kerry Washington, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Pedro Pascal, Maya Rudolph and more than 400 other artists signed an open letter organized by the American Civil Liberties Union calling for the defense of free speech in the wake of Kimmel’s benching.
The letter, which was published Monday, says Kimmel’s suspension marks “a dark moment for freedom of speech in our nation” and said that the government’s “attempt to silence its critics” runs “counter to the values our nation was built upon, and our Constitution guarantees.”
“Regardless of our political affiliation, or whether we engage in politics or not, we all love our country,” the letter continues. “We also share the belief that our voices should never be silenced by those in power — because if it happens to one of us, it happens to all of us.”
The letter came together over the weekend, according to Jessica Weitz, director of artist and entertainment engagement at the ACLU. The list of names continued to grow after the letter was published, she said.
“Behind those signatures are teams of people who made their own calls to their networks to ask people to join, feeling strongly that this attack on free expression must be called out,” Weitz said in a statement to The Times. “When speech is being targeted with so much precision, it takes courage from every single person to speak out — and the creative community is meeting the urgency of this moment.”
Kimmel’s late-night program, which airs weeknights on ABC, has been dark since Wednesday, when the Disney-owned network announced it will be “preempted indefinitely.” The decision came after two major owners of ABC affiliates said they were dropping the show because of Kimmel’s remarks about the suspect in the shooting death of conservative activist Charlie Kirk.
Late-night hosts were quick to respond to the news, with Jon Stewart, Stephen Colbert, Seth Meyers and Jimmy Fallon each commenting on Kimmel’s situation in their Thursday episodes.
Over the weekend, HBO talk shows “Real Time With Bill Maher” and “Last Week Tonight With John Oliver,” weighed in on the controversy, beginning with Maher, who focused on Kimmel in his monologue Friday. Maher referred to “Politically Incorrect,” his late-night show that was canceled by ABC in 2002 after advertisers pulled out following a comment by the host about the Sept. 11 hijackers, saying they were “not cowardly.” Kimmel’s show replaced Maher’s slot.
“I got canceled before cancel even had a culture,” Maher said. “This s— ain’t new. It’s worse. We’ll get to that. But you know, ABC, they are steady. ABC stands for ‘Always be caving.’ So Jimmy, pal, I am with you. I support you. And on the bright side, you don’t have to pretend anymore that you like Disneyland.”
Maher, who is a self-described “old-school liberal” and has been critical of the Democratic Party in recent years, said he disagreed with Kimmel’s comments about Kirk’s suspected killer but believed he shouldn’t lose his job over them.
“You have the right to be wrong or to have any opinion you want, he said. “That’s what the 1st Amendment is all about.”
“Last Week Tonight” host John Oliver zeroed in on Kimmel’s suspension and the Federal Communications Commission during his Sunday night episode. He blasted FCC Chairman Brendan Carr, directly addressed Disney Chief Executive Bob Iger and dove into the implications of the suspension in a nearly 30-minute-long segment.
“Kimmel is by no means the first casualty in Trump’s attacks on free speech. He’s just the latest canary in the coal mine — a mine that, at this point, now seems more dead canary than coal,” Oliver said. “This Kimmel situation does feel like a turning point, and not because comedians are important, but because we are not. If the government can force a network to pull a late-night show off the air and do so in plain view, it can do a f— of a lot worse.”
In addressing Disney head Iger, Oliver urged him to understand that “giving the bully your lunch money doesn’t make him go away. It just makes him come back hungrier each time.”
Oliver said his show is “lucky” to be in a different situation than Kimmel’s because neither HBO or its parent company, Warner Bros. Discovery, owns broadcast networks, meaning they are “much less susceptible to pressure from the FCC.” He then cut to a news segment about how Paramount Skydance, the parent company of CBS, is preparing a bid to buy Warner Bros. Discovery, which Oliver followed up with repeated expletives.
The women who host ABC’s “The View,” which is known for not shying away from hot-button topics, had been silent on the issue last week, but addressed Kimmel’s suspension Monday.
“Did y’all really think we weren’t going to talk about Jimmy Kimmel?” host Whoopi Goldberg said. “I mean, have you watched the show over the last 29 seasons? No one silences us.”
FCC head Carr has indicated that “The View” might be the next subject of a future investigation.
The panel, including Ana Navarro and Alyssa Farah Griffin, also weighed in before Goldberg said, “We fight for everybody’s right to have freedom of speech because it means my speech is free, it means your speech is free.”
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