'Jimmy Kimmel Live!' taken off air indefinitely after host's remarks on Charlie Kirk shooting

The famous ABC late-night talk show host Jimmy Kimmel was taken off air indefinitely over his comments on the shooting of right-wing activist and US President Donald Trump’s ally, Charlie Kirk. “Jimmy Kimmel Live will be pre-empted indefinitely,” a spokesperson for the Disney-owned network said in a statement to the BBC.

During a monologue on Monday night, Kimmel said the “Maga gang” was trying to score political points off Kirk’s murder. The remarks from the comedian came a day before 22-year-old Tyler Robinson appeared in court and was charged with aggravated murder over last Wednesday’s shooting of the 31-year-old conservative influencer.

The announcement from Disney came after one of the biggest owners of TV stations in the US, Nexstar Media, said it would not air Jimmy Kimmel Live! “for the foreseeable future, beginning with tonight’s show”. On Wednesday, Nexstar said that the celebrated host’s remarks about Kirk were “offensive and insensitive at a critical time in our national political discourse”.

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“[W]e do not believe they reflect the spectrum of opinions, views, or values of the local communities in which we are located,” said Andrew Alford, president of Nexstar’s broadcasting division. “Continuing to give Kimmel a broadcast platform in the communities we serve is simply not in the public interest at the current time, and we have made the difficult decision to preempt his show in an effort to let cooler heads prevail as we move toward the resumption of respectful, constructive dialogue,” he added.

What Kimmel said

In his monologue, Kimmel accused Maga of painting Robinson as “anything other than one of them”. “The Maga Gang desperately trying to characterise 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 the Monday broadcast.

The late-night host has been frequently in the crosshairs of Trump and his administration. In the Monday show, he also criticised the flags being flown at half-staff in honour of Kirk, and mocked Trump’s reaction to the shooting.

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In the show, he spliced a clip of the president speaking with reporters about his reaction to Kirk’s death and redirected to talk about a ballroom being built at the White House. “He’s at the fourth stage of grief,” Kimmel said. “Construction. It’s demolition, construction.”

“This is not how an adult grieves the murder of someone he calls a friend. This is how a four-year-old mourns a gold fish,” he averred. Representatives for Kimmel did not immediately release a statement on the matter.