Jimmy Kimmel’s return to television on Tuesday came with high expectations — and based on the reaction his monologue received online, it seems those were more than met.
The late night host’s return monologue has broken a record on his YouTube channel, become his most viewed YouTube monologue of all time less than a day after it went live. At the time of writing the video is closing in on 20 million views. Kimmel’s previous most-watched monologue, an eight-year-old clip in which he gives an emotional speech about his son’s heart surgery, currently has 14 million views.
Kimmel’s show was suspended last week following comments he made about the right-wing reaction to Charlie Kirk’s murder. His monologue drew criticism from Trump-appointed FCC chair Brendan Carr, who threatened Kimmel’s network ABC during a podcast appearance. Shortly afterwards Nexstar, which owns multiple ABC affiliates and is currently seeking Trump administration approval for an upcoming merger, made the decision to pull Kimmel off the air on its stations. Disney-owned ABC then announced that they were “indefinitely suspending” Kimmel’s show — a decision that the company reversed at the start of this week, following pressure from celebrities and customers cancelling their Disney+ subscriptions in protest.
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Kimmel’s return has drawn the ire of Trump, who took to Truth Social to lament the decision and issue a threat to ABC. But based on how Kimmel has responded to that threat, the host clearly isn’t planning to stop making fun of the president anytime soon.
If your local station still isn’t airing Kimmel, here’s how you can watch his show.
