By Joe Flint and Katherine Sayre

LOS ANGELES -- Ticket holders for Tuesday's taping of "Jimmy Kimmel Live!" faced a media spectacle as they lined up to enter El Capitan Theatre on Hollywood Boulevard where they were cordoned off from reporters gathered to interview audience members and fans chanted at a small rally nearby.

The taping will be Kimmel's first since ABC parent Disney pulled the show indefinitely during controversy over the host's remarks about the killing of conservative activist Charlie Kirk.

Down the block from the theater, a small rally in support of Kimmel was under way, including a man in American-themed clothing and another leader dressed as a dinosaur. They led the crowd in chants like "Jimmy Kimmel stays. Trump must go."

Another man wandered around with a sign that said "Jimmy Kimmel Lies."

Several people headed to line up said they were Kimmel fans who signed up for tickets weeks ago before the show was pulled from the air.

Mike Conway, a recently retired college professor and media historian at Indiana University, is visiting the city for a conference. A friend put in for tickets weeks ago, got approved and then the show was canceled, he said.

When it was relaunched for the night of their tickets, Conway added, "I said 'OK let's go.'"

"It's sad to see what's happening in our country with the ability to have your own opinions and voice your opinions," he said. "I hope we will start leaning back more towards letting people have different opinions and they can air them and not so much bullying over what people believe."

Walter Bates, a retired music teacher who called himself Democrat-leaning, is on a trip to the city with his wife. He said Jimmy Kimmel is the main attraction and they got their tickets weeks ago.

"I don't think Jimmy said anything I would consider vile or hateful," he said. "I will always fall on the side of free speech."

Kimmel met with Disney leadership Monday, The Wall Street Journal reported, and the company announced later that day that it had decided to return the show to air. Disney said it had spent days having "thoughtful conversations with Jimmy."

Broadcasters Nexstar and Sinclair, which combined own and operate more than 60 ABC affiliates that reach 22% of U.S. households, said they still planned to replace Kimmel's show with news programming starting Tuesday night.

Nexstar owns ABC affiliates in markets including Nashville, New Orleans and Salt Lake City. Sinclair owns ABC affiliates in markets including Washington, D.C., Seattle and St. Louis.

The late-night show has been off air since. Sept. 17 after Federal Communications Commission Chairman Brendan Carr criticized Kimmel's remarks and suggested regulators could take action against the broadcast licenses of ABC-owned stations.

Kimmel had told viewers on Sept. 15 that, "we hit some new lows over the weekend with the MAGA gang desperately trying to characterize this kid who murdered Charlie Kirk as anything other than one of them." He mocked President Trump's grieving, comparing it to "how a 4-year-old mourns a goldfish."

Nexstar said after Carr's remarks last Wednesday that Kimmel's comments about Kirk's death and his followers were beyond the pale. The company has a $6.2 billion deal to acquire rival broadcaster Tegna that will need FCC approval. A Nexstar spokesman said the decision to pull Kimmel wasn't tied to the Tegna deal.

Sinclair called for Kimmel to apologize to the Kirk family and make a personal donation to the family and Kirk's organization, Turning Point USA.

Trump, Carr and some other conservatives lauded Disney's move, while some Democrats and people in Hollywood expressed concerns about government censorship. Some customers of Disney's streaming services, Hulu and Disney+, canceled their subscriptions.

Sen. Ted Cruz (R., Texas) was among some Republicans who criticized Carr for overreach. On his podcast, Cruz said it was "unbelievably dangerous for government to put itself in the position of saying we're going to decide what speech we like and what we don't, and we're going to threaten to take you off air if we don't like what you're saying."

More than 400 celebrities, including Tom Hanks, Lin-Manuel Miranda and Kerry Washington, signed a letter sponsored by the American Civil Liberties Union denouncing Kimmel's suspension as "a dark moment for freedom of speech in our nation."

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

September 23, 2025 20:45 ET (00:45 GMT)

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