What Happened with Jimmy Kimmel’s Suspension by Disney?

Welcome back to New Rockstars, I’m Eric Voss, and today we need to talk about what really happened with Jimmy Kimmel’s suspension by Disney, the ensuing call to unsubscribe from Disney Plus, even by Marvel Studios actors, and what this means for all of us on YouTube covering entertainment news. Yes, New Rockstars is a channel that breaks down and analyzes nerdy films and TV shows, but we’ve been getting so many questions about this particular story, and we all felt strongly enough about how it impacts our lives, especially how it could affect the Marvel Cinematic Universe, the DC Universe, and universes like The Boys with its Gen V spin-off. So, similar to our coverage of CBS and Paramount’s decision to end Stephen Colbert’s The Late Show and the industry drama behind that, we felt we really owed it to all of you to try to explain the forces behind what’s really going on at Disney.

To be clear, I will do my very best to steer clear of the partisan politics that are very strongly tugging on both sides of this issue. I will have to acknowledge the existence of politics in America in this video, but I am not making this video to rant or lecture you on what you should believe or how you should vote or anything like that. I am not going to turn this channel into a political analysis channel. Trust me. But full disclosure, I do have a degree in journalism, and I had to study First Amendment law to get that degree, and this is just a huge story, and I just really want you all to know what’s really going on with it and how it impacts us and how it impacts you.

So, what the heck is happening with Jimmy Kimmel, Disney, and the FCC?

In a nutshell, late-night host Jimmy Kimmel, host of Jimmy Kimmel Live, was suspended by ABC and its parent company, Disney, for comments he made about the political reaction to the murder of Charlie Kirk after Disney was pressured by the Trump administration via the FCC, threatening to revoke ABC’s broadcasting license, and after a company representing two dozen ABC affiliates across the country refused to air Kimmel’s show. As of this taping, Kimmel is still in negotiations with Disney over whether his show could get reinstated. Meanwhile, this has all incited a fiery debate over the First Amendment, free speech, censorship, and a boycott of Disney Plus that has resulted in Disney losing a reported $4 billion in market value. But Disney did issue a press release on Monday that Jimmy Kimmel Live will return on Tuesday, September 23rd.

The Background: A Dispute That’s Been Brewing

Insiders report that Kimmel and Merz had already clashed at a charity event months ago. While Merz was giving a speech about economic responsibility, Kimmel allegedly accused him of “only talking about numbers and power, but never about people.”