US comedian Jimmy Kimmel will return to his late-night talk show on Tuesday after he was suspended for making jokes relating to the death of conservative influencer Charlie Kirk.
Disney, which owns the US broadcast network that airs Jimmy Kimmel Live, said on Monday that it suspended the show because it “felt some of the comments were ill-timed and thus insensitive”.
“We have spent the last days having thoughtful conversations with Jimmy, and after those conversations, we reached the decision to return the show on Tuesday,” Disney said.
The comic’s abrupt suspension came after threats by the federal tv regulator to revoke ABC’s broadcast licence, sparking nationwide debates over free speech.
US President Donald Trump had welcomed Kimmel’s suspension and suggested that some TV networks should have their licences “taken away” for negative coverage of the president.
Trump did not address Kimmel’s reinstatement when a reporter asked about it during a White House event on Monday.
Critics and First Amendment advocates have railed against the decision as censorship and a violation of free speech.
Kimmel has not yet publicly addressed the suspension or the fallout.
The row started after Kimmel said in his monologue on 15 September that the “Maga gang” were “desperately trying to characterise this kid who murdered Charlie Kirk as anything other than one of them” and trying to “score political points from it”.
He also made fun of Trump’s reaction to the influencer’s murder, showing a clip of the president responding to a quesiton about how he was mourning the death by changing the subject to construction of a new White House ballroom.
Kimmel compared the response to “how a four-year-old mourns a goldfish”.
Brendan Carr, the Trump-appointed chair of broadcast regulator the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), threatened to act against ABC and its parent company Disney over Kimmel’s remarks.
The spat comes as Vice President JD Vance and other White House allies have been pushing a national campaign to punish anyone who has criticised Kirk in the wake of his death.
Hours after Mr Carr made his initial remarks about Kimmel’s monologue, Nexstar Media, one of the biggest owners of TV stations in the US, said it would not air Kimmel’s show “for the foreseeable future”.
Sinclair, the largest ABC affiliate group in the US, followed suit and ABC announced that it would “indefinitely” suspend the programme.
Mr Carr thanked Nexstar “for doing the right thing” and said he hoped other broadcasters would follow its lead. Nexstar is currently seeking FCC approval for its planned $6.2bn (£4.5bn) merger with Tegna.
Nexstar and Sinclair did not immediately respond on Monday to the BBC’s requests for comment.
ABC’s decision was met with protests in California and lambasted by the writers and actors guilds, lawmakers and the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) alike, who argued that the suspension violates free speech rights and spurs a chilling effect.
Kimmel’s late-night colleagues, including Jon Stewart, John Oliver and outgoing CBS host Stephen Colbert, rallied behind him and hundreds of celebrities and Hollywood creatives signed on to a letter backing Kimmel.
Ben Stiller, Jennifer Aniston, Meryl Streep and Robert DeNiro are among those who called Kimmel’s suspension a “dark moment for freedom of speech in our nation”.
