Credit: Video Screenshot, ‘The Late Show With Stephen Colbert’, CBS

On the afternoon of September 17, Jimmy Kimmel was in his dressing room at his Hollywood studio, getting ready to shoot another episode of his Emmy-winning late-night talk show. However, Mr. Kimmel would never get on the stage that night. His audience would not hear his monologue, listen to his planned interviews, or laugh at his jokes.

That’s because, just hours before the show taping was set to begin, Disney and ABC decided to pull Jimmy Kimmel Live! from the air, “indefinitely.” That decision came after ABC’s two largest affiliate broadcasters, NexStar Media and Sinclair Broadcasting, announced they would no longer air the show.

Two days prior to the show’s suspension, Mr. Kimmel had made comments about Donald Trump and the assassination of conservative activist Charlie Kirk. The comments sparked a wave of conservative outrage, and Brendan Carr — the head of the Federal Communications Commission — launched a thinly veiled threat against Disney and ABC. He said that the company could do things “the easy way or the hard way,” and if Kimmel wasn’t pulled off the air, the FCC would be very busy with new investigations.

Jimmy Kimmel Live! returned to the air on September 23, six days after his suspension, and also the same day that Disney announced a price increase for its Disney+ and Hulu streaming packages.

edit: Video Screenshot, ‘Jimmy Kimmel Live!’, ABC

Jimmy Kimmel recently sat down with fellow late-night host Stephen Colbert, whose own Emmy-winning show was canceled earlier this year, and detailed the “roller coaster of emotions” that came with his shocking suspension.

It was about 3:00. We tape our show at 4:30. I’m in my office, typing away as I usually do. I get a phone call, it’s ABC. They say they want to talk to me. This is unusual. As far as I knew, they didn’t even know I was doing a show previous to this, so I have like five people who work in my office with me, so the only private place to go is the bathroom.

So I go into the bathroom. And I’m on the phone with the ABC executives and they say, ‘Listen, we wanna take the temperature down. We’re concerned about what you’re gonna say tonight and we decided that the best route is to take the show off the air tonight. 

Kimmel revealed that he did try to fight back on his show’s suspension, telling ABC that he didn’t think it was a good idea. Unfortunately, his protests fell on deaf ears.

I said I don’t think that’s a good idea, and they said, ‘Well, we think it’s a good idea.’ And then there was a vote and I lost the vote. So I put my pants back on and I walked out to my office and I called in some of the executive producers, and there were about nine people in there, and I said, ‘They’re pulling the show off the air.’

He noted that the cancellation was so last-minute that the guest chef had even begun cooking. The crowd was sent home, but the musical guest was allowed to tape his segment, ironically singing a song called “Things Can Only Get Better.”

Mr. Kimmel admitted that, immediately after he learned of his suspension, he was convinced that his show would never return to the air. And things were made worse when he left the studio and was bombarded by paparazzi, who even followed him home.

In the days following his suspension, Disney faced a ton of backlash, with angry fans even protesting outside Disney’s studio lot, as well as outside the Jimmy Kimmel Live! studio. Disney stars encouraged their followers to cancel their Disney+ subscriptions and their Disney vacations as a way to take a stand against the Mouse House.

Disney’s stock tumbled, and nearly two million people canceled their Disney+ subscriptions, causing the website to crash.

Former Disney CEO Michael Eisner was so shocked that he took to social media to question Bob Iger’s decision-making, asking, “Where has all the leadership gone?” Iger was reportedly so upset by Eisner’s criticism that it became the driving force behind his decision to reinstate the show.

When Sinclair Broadcasting first suspended Jimmy Kimmel Live!, it also issued a list of demands that Mr. Kimmel would have to meet if he wanted his show back on their affiliate stations. However, when Sinclair agreed to bring the show back, the list of demands was reportedly thrown out.

While Disney brought Mr. Kimmel back on September 23, he did not air on Sinclair and NexStar until September 26.

Donald Trump and the FCC were furious when Jimmy Kimmel Live! was revived and have threatened further investigations and “tests” on both Disney and ABC.