Conan O’Brien has spoken out following ABC’s decision to indefinitely suspend his fellow comedian, Jimmy Kimmel. According to the former late night host, the move should “disturb everyone,” regardless of political affiliation.
“The suspension of Jimmy Kimmel and the promise to silence other Late Night hosts for criticizing the administration should disturb everyone on the Right, Left and Center,” O’Brien shared on X. “It’s wrong and anyone with a conscience knows it’s wrong.”
Kimmel was suspended on Wednesday after affiliate owners Nexstar and Sinclair revealed they were pulling “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” off the air due to host’s Monday coverage of the Charlie Kirk assassination.
Since then, late night veterans like Jon Stewart, Jimmy Fallon, Seth Meyers, David Letterman and Stephen Colbert have all condemned Disney and the network for allowing President Donald Trump and FCC Chairman Brendan Carr to seemingly meddle in their programming decisions.
O’Brien himself has had a rocky relationship with the broadcast networks in the past, albeit for less politically motivated reasons. The 2025 Oscars host first had “Late Night with Conan O’Brien” on NBC from 1993 to 2009 before he was bumped up to “The Tonight Show” in ’09. However, the network ended up bringing Jay Leno back to the timeslot that same season and O’Brien instead was left to host “Conan” on TBS from 2010 through 2021.
There is currently no set return date for “JKL” after it was ““pre-empted indefinitely,” but the late night show has not been canceled.
