2025 Not first controversy year of Jimmy Kimmel. By September 2025, Jimmy Kimmel has no significant new scandal in the offing as far as his exercise of political jabs and celebrity roast-style humor on talk shows is concerned. The vast majority of the existing debates are repeat shows on his old exploits and political jokes, particularly in the 2024 U.S. election. Nevertheless, certain controversies of the past still emerge on the Internet.
Major Past Controversies
The lengthy history of comedy and late-night TV has created several hotspots by Jimmy Kimmel:
1.Blackface Skits (Karl Malone and Oprah)
- Context: When he did The Man Show and other sketches in the late 1990s and early 2000s, Kimmel used blackface makeup to impersonate NBA star Karl Malone and Oprah Winfrey.
- Backlash: Old clips reemerged in 2020 with the George Floyd protest and the Black Lives Matter movement.
- Response: Kimmel publicly repented, calling it thoughtless and that he had never meant to cause harm but that he knew it was wrong.
- “Kill Everyone in China” Joke (2013)
- Incident: A comedy sketch on Jimmy Kimmel Live! involved a child proposing that he can kill everybody in China to resolve U.S. debt issues.
- Response: Huge Chinese/Asian American backlash. The participants of the protest insisted on the apology, which they claimed was racist and insensitive.
- Outcome: ABC and Kimmel had to apologize saying that the segment should not have been aired.
- Feud with Kanye West (2013)
- Incident: Kimmel faked a Kanye BBC interview by creating a sketch where the children were reciting the quotes of Kanye.
- Reaction: In response, Kanye blew up on Twitter, naming Kimmel out. The feud turned into a pop-culture spectacle but it finished through an on-air reconciliation.
4.Jokes and bias (Political) accusation(Ongoing)
- Nature: Kimmel is among the most political late-night hosts who mocks the Republicans (Donald Trump in particular).
- Criticism: Conservatives claim he is biased and unfriendliness to half his audience, and his supporters interpret his use of comedy as his way of holding power accountable.
- Quentin Tarantino Harvey Weinstein Interrogatives.
- The negative aspect is that critics have criticized Kimmel as being hypocritical to question Harvey Weinstein on his abuse even after the issue came to light in public because Kimmel had interview him many times.
Summary
- The most infamous scandal: Blackface skits (that are still used in cancel-culture discussions).
- Achilles heel: Political monologues, and they continue to keep him in the culture-war crossfire.
- Recent events: 2025 is not in a new scandal, but previous events are still in the background when Kimmel commentates politically sharply or when he presents large events (such as the Oscars).
What’s going on now
Triggering event
- The latest scandal involves remarks of Jimmy Kimmel who discussed the murder of conservative activist Charlie Kirk in a monologue. Kimmel condemned the fact that there were those in the MAGA/media space who are allegedly attempting to turn the tragedy into a business.
- ABC (Disney) reacted by cancelling the Jimmy Kimmel Live! permanently, saying that some of the comments were ill-timed and insensitive.
- After a few days of criticism, in-house deliberations, and pressure on the part of various groups, ABC reversed its decision and reinstated the show, which will air on September 23, 2025.
- Some local station owners, however, do not agree to air the show (especially Sinclair and Nexstar) so in many U.S. markets the show will not air on ABC there.
Public, celebrity & political responses.
Kimmel & his team
- Kimmel has used social media to make his first post after the suspension a tribute to Norman Lear.
- His long-time companion, Guillermo Rodriguez, also wrote, in expecting them to come back, that they are back full of love.
- It appears that when Kimmel first came back to the public he did not provide a full and explicit apology, yet couched the statements as not his intention to be making light of the tragedy.
Fellow entertainers & media
- Other late-night hosts such as Stephen Colbert, Jon Stewart, Seth Meyers came out in support of Kimmel and condemned the suspension as an assault on free speech.
- Joe Rogan attacked conservatives who cheered the suspension, saying that authorizing censorship will invite expanding censorship into other areas.
- Roseanne Barr called a spon of a perceived double standard in her own cancellation in comparison with a comparatively brief suspension of Kimmel.
Regulators & networks, politicians.
- On the one hand, Donald Trump criticized ABC on its decision to revive the show, stating that it was Democratic propaganda, and potentially legal or regulatory action.
- FCC Chair Brendan Carr had previously warned broadcast companies in public that they might face regulatory attention when they promoted the work of Kimmel.
- Sinclair and Nexstar (large owners of ABC affiliates) have been steadfast and said they would not stop preempting the Kimmel show even after the reinstatement due to issues of tone and accountability.
- Senators and civil liberties groups have also intervened, some of them having launched investigation into whether his show was being blacked out at the station level on political grounds.
- Disney/ABC was attacked by the ACLU and others as capitulating unnecessarily to political pressure in its first suspension and held off actions that produce chilling effects on freedom of speech.
Grassroots / public reaction
- On social media, people have shown a spurt in Disney+ / Hulu subscription cancellations as a protest.
- Fans and supporters shared messages of support, providing screenshots of cancellations, calling on the hashtag boycott Disney, and so on.
- In response to portions of the backlash, some skeptics referred to it as performative activism, commenting on the time of cancellations or how people had already renewed subscriptions.
Observations & implications
- This scandal has many layers: the issue of what Kimmel said, who put pressure on him, how networks reacted and how they manage to balance free speech and political polarization are all underlying issues.
- The fact that ABC has overturned its suspension can indicate that the pushback was powerful enough to change internal calculations.
- However, when Sinclair/Nexstar declined to air the program, even after being reinstated by the network, it sparks the discussion of the complicated power structure in U.S. broadcast television: even the local station owners can prevent material although the network has given it the green light.
- It is being observed by many as a bellwether: can political influence be applied to content decisions by networks, will entertainers censor themselves to avoid the heat?
- A lasting ban or demand of a quid-pro-quo on the freedom to be creative of Kimmel (after reinstatement) may be a worrying precedent.
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