Jimmy Kimmel recently opened up about his temporary suspension during an engaging chat on Stephen Colbert’s hit show The Late Show.
On September 30, the two humorists swapped the stage, sharing anecdotes regarding their recent confrontations with network politics. While Kimmel, at 57, made a comeback last week after his brief stint off the air prompted by right-wing backlash over remarks on the infamous Charlie Kirk, Colbert faced a different fate when CBS decided to cancel his show in July.
During their chat on The Late Show, Kimmel relayed the shock of his suspension, expressing his initial belief that Jimmy Kimmel Live! was permanently finished when ABC pulled the plug on September 17. (However, his show made a six-day triumphant return on September 22.)
Kimmel humorously recounted, “I was in my office engaged in my usual typing routine when I got a call from ABC. They wanted to speak with me. That’s not your everyday occurrence.” He continued with wit, “Considering I thought they were oblivious to my show’s very existence, it was a bit startling.”
He elaborated, “With only five people working in my office, my go-to private space became the bathroom. So here I was, sitting there on the phone with the ABC team, and they told me, ‘We want to bring the heat down. We’re a bit concerned about what you might say tonight, so we decided the best option is to take the show off the air.'” Kimmel added, “I countered with, ‘I don’t think that’s a great idea,’ but their reply was simply, ‘Well, we do.’ And thus, in a not so democratic fashion, I lost the vote.”
Upon returning to convey the news to his team, Kimmel delivered another jab, noting that his wife, Molly McNearney, executive producer and writer for the show, remarked he emerged looking “whiter than Jim Gaffigan.”
Colbert, who is 61, further prompted Kimmel to share his feelings in that moment, to which Kimmel candidly responded, “I thought it was done for good. That was my mindset; there’s no coming back from this.”
Ironically, Kimmel disclosed that a studio audience was already settled and prepared for the evening’s scheduled program, only to be sent away at the last minute. “We had a chef, Christian Petroni, who had put his heart into making meatballs and polenta all day. [Singer] Howard Jones was lined up to record a future performance. The irony was that the song he performed, even in the absence of our audience, was entitled ‘Things Can Only Get Better’,” Kimmel quipped.
Meanwhile, during the recent Jimmy Kimmel Live! on ABC, Kimmel didn’t hesitate to question Colbert about the abrupt termination of his show. Colbert humorously shared that he only discovered the cancellation from their mutual manager, the notorious James “Baby Doll” Dixon, who had intentionally kept the news from him for a week while he was away on vacation, citing a desire not to spoil his holiday.
