NEW YORK (AP) — Jimmy Kimmel returned to late-night television Tuesday after a nearly weeklong suspension and nearly broke down in tears, saying he wasn’t trying joke about the killing of conservative activist Charlie Kirk.
“I have no illusions about changing anyone’s mind, but I do want to make something clear, because it’s important to me as a human and that is, you understand that it was never my intention to make light of the murder of a young man,” Kimmel said, his voice breaking. “I don’t think there’s anything funny about it.”
Kimmel added: “Nor was it my intention to blame any specific group for the actions of what it was obviously a deeply disturbed individual. That was really the opposite of the point I was trying to make.” He said he understood his remarks last week to some “felt either ill-timed or unclear or maybe both.”
Kimmel criticized the ABC affiliates who took his show off the air. “That’s not legal. That’s not American. It’s unAmerican.”
He thanked the people who supported him, and even people who doesn’t like him who stood up for his right to speak, including Texas Sen. Ted Cruz. “It takes courage for them to speak out against this administration. They did and they deserve credit for it.”
ABC, which suspended Kimmel’s show last Wednesday following criticism of his comments about the assassination of conservative activist Charlie Kirk, announced Monday that “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” would return after the network had “thoughtful conversations” with the host.
Kimmel’s viewership was more limited than usual. Two companies that owned ABC affiliates said they would not put Kimmel’s show on, leaving audiences in such cities as St. Louis, Nashville, Tennessee, and Richmond, Virginia to watch something else. The Sinclair and Nexstar corporations collectively control about a quarter of ABC affiliates.
“Our long national late nightmare is over,” Stephen Colbert joked on his CBS show in response to Kimmel’s reinstatement.
Kimmel, who has been publicly silent since his suspension, posted Tuesday on his Instagram account a picture of himself with the late television producer and free speech advocate Norman Lear. “Missing this guy today,” he wrote.
ABC suspended Kimmel “indefinitely” after comments he made in a monologue last week. Kimmel, who has been a relentless Trump critic in his comedy, suggested that many Trump supporters were trying to capitalize on Kirk’s death and were “desperately trying to characterize this kid who murdered Charlie Kirk as anything other than one of them.”