Jimmy Kimmel's late night show to return on Tuesday

Jimmy Kimmel is coming back on the air.

The Walt Disney Company, which owns ABC, announced Monday that Jimmy Kimmel Live! would return on Tuesday, ending a short suspension that began last week.

“Last Wednesday, we made the decision to suspend production on the show to avoid further inflaming a tense situation at an emotional moment for our country,” the Walt Disney Company said in a statement.

“It is a decision we made because we 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,” it concluded.

The network took Kimmel’s late-night show off the air last week over comments he made following the killing of right-wing political activist Charlie Kirk.

Kimmel said in his monologue last Monday, “We hit some new lows over the weekend with the MAGA gang desperately trying to characterize this kid who murdered Charlie Kirk as anything other than one of them, and doing everything they can to score political points from it. In between the finger-pointing, there was grieving.”

ABC, which has aired Kimmel’s late-night show since 2003, moved swiftly after Nexstar Communications Group said it would pull the show starting Wednesday following Kimmel’s comments.

The late-night hosts’ remarks about Kirk’s death “are offensive and insensitive at a critical time in our national political discourse,” said Andrew Alford, president of Nexstar’s broadcasting division.

Nexstar operates 23 ABC affiliates in the U.S.

Sinclair, which also owns dozens of ABC affiliates, said last week it would not return Jimmy Kimmel Live! to its airwaves “until we are confident that appropriate steps have been taken to uphold the standards expected of a national broadcast platform.”

It called on Kimmel to apologize directly to Kirk’s family and to make a “meaningful personal donation” to Turning Point USA, the conservative youth advocacy organization Kirk founded and led up until his killing.

Meanwhile, Federal Communications Commission Chair Brendan Carr called Kimmel’s comments “truly sick” and said his agency has a strong case for holding Kimmel, ABC and network parent Walt Disney Co. accountable for spreading misinformation.

Yet in public comments since Kimmel’s suspension, Carr has said the FCC played no role in Disney’s decision and that local television station groups like Nexstar were simply exerting their power.

“Jimmy Kimmel is in the situation that he’s in because of his ratings, not because of anything that has happened at the federal government level,” Carr said during a conversation at the Concordia Summit in New York on Monday, before Disney announced Kimmel’s return to the air.

Carr accused Democrats and other critics of Kimmel’s suspension of “distortion” and “projection” by saying Carr, the FCC and the Trump administration were attacking free speech under the First Amendment.

Kimmel has not commented on the news of his show’s return.

— With files from Global News’ Katie Scott and Sean Boynton

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