Conan O’Brien is the latest late-night TV veteran to speak out against Jimmy Kimmel’s show being pulled from the air.
“The suspension of @jimmykimmel and the promise to silence other Late Night hosts for criticizing the administration should disturb everyone on the Right, Left, and Center,” O’Brien wrote on social media Friday. “It’s wrong and anyone with a conscience knows it’s wrong.”
O’Brien hosted his own Late Night With Conan O’Brien from 1993 to 2009 on NBC, then briefly hosted the network’s The Tonight Show, and, later, returned to TV with TBS’ Conan, which aired from 2010 to 2021.
He joins a chorus that includes current and former hosts of similar shows that regularly skewer the news of the day, political and all, including David Letterman, Jay Leno, Stephen Colbert, Jon Stewart, and Jimmy Fallon, all of whom have publicly opposed the move. (Former President Barack Obama and Lost co-creator Damon Lindelof are among those who have said much the same.)
Disney-owned ABC announced Wednesday that it was preempting Kimmel indefinitely following comments he made on Monday’s show regarding conservative activist Charlie Kirk, who was assassinated on Sept. 10. Conservatives had complained that the Jimmy Kimmel Live host had inaccurately described the political beliefs held by the man accused of shooting the Turning Point USA founder.
The decision came down as affiliate networks, owned by companies that have requests in with the FCC, dropped the show.
Disney/Randy Holmes via Getty
Sign up for Entertainment Weekly‘s free daily newsletter to get breaking TV news, exclusive first looks, recaps, reviews, interviews with your favorite stars, and more.
FCC chairman Brendan Carr had said ahead of the decision that broadcasters “have a license granted by us at the FCC that comes with it an obligation to operate in the public interest.”
He added, in a conversation on Benny Johnson’s podcast, per PBS, “I mean, look, we can do this the easy way or the hard way. These companies can find ways to change conduct to take actions, frankly on Kimmel, or there’s going to be additional work for the FCC ahead.”
Letterman described the situation as “misery” on Thursday while appearing at the Atlantic Festival.
“I feel bad about this because we’ll see where this is going, correct? It’s managed media, and it’s no good,” Letterman said. “It’s ridiculous, and you can’t go around firing somebody because you’re fearful or trying to suck up to an authoritarian and criminal administration in the Oval Office. That’s just not how this works.”
