Disney is under siege from all sides.
Within 48 hours of its decision to pull late-night host Jimmy Kimmel off the air indefinitely, the parent company of ABC has once again found itself at the center of a bitter political battle. The company now faces protests outside its studios, celebrities threatening to break ties and political pressure from Republicans and Democrats.
Kimmel’s removal came Wednesday after he commented on Charlie Kirk’s killing. ABC’s decision has further amplified a free speech debate that began in the immediate aftermath of Kirk’s assassination, with some on the left claiming that the right were engaging in the “cancel culture” they once said they loathed, while others on the right sought to dub Kimmel’s removal as “consequence culture.”
A spokesperson for Disney did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Friday.
The blowback has been swift. Damon Lindelof, creator of ABC’s “Lost,” said in an Instagram post on Thursday that he would not work with the company if Kimmel’s suspension was not lifted. The Emmy-winning showrunner has a longstanding relationship with the studio, having worked with them on “Lost” for six seasons from 2004 to 2010.
Tatiana Maslany, who starred in Marvel’s “She-Hulk: Attorney at Law,” which aired its first and only season on Disney+ in 2022, posted a call to her followers on Instagram to “cancel your @disneyplus @hulu @espn subscriptions!”
Many of those in Trump’s camp, including Trump himself, are not backing down. Trump on Thursday posted to Truth Social a clip of Kimmel at the Academy Awards reading out a real-time critique from Trump on his hosting, adding: “He made a total FOOL of himself, his wife and agent begging him not to do it, while also proving to be one of the Worst Hosts in the History of the Academy Awards.”
Some other well-followed media personalities saw Disney’s move as a reasonable response to what Kimmel said. Dave Portnoy, the founder of Barstool Sports who has at times been critical of Trump, posted on X that the suspension was not an example of cancel culture.
“That is consequences for your actions,” he wrote.
Vice President JD Vance on Friday afternoon offered a fresh barb at Kimmel and downplayed free speech concerns.
“Jimmy Kimmel wasn’t funny, his ratings were in the toilet, and his advertisers were revolting,” Vance posted on X. “Also the bellyaching from the left over ‘free speech’ after the Biden years fools precisely no one.”
The news that Kimmel’s show would be removed from the airwaves came on Wednesday evening, two days after the late-night host criticized some for how they responded to Kirk’s killing. Text messages from suspect Tyler Robinson, released Tuesday by authorities , allegedly said he targeted Kirk because Robinson “had enough of his hatred.”
“The MAGA gang [is] 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,” Kimmel said during the Monday broadcast.
The move to “indefinitely” pre-empt Kimmel’s show came hours after FCC Chairman Brendan Carr threatened to “take action” against both Disney and ABC over the comments, including threats to pull ABC affiliate licenses.
Nexstar Media Group Inc. — which has more than 200 stations in the United States and is waiting on FCC approval for a $6.2 billion acquisition of smaller, rival TV company Tegna — said it was pulling “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” for the foreseeable future, starting Wednesday night.
Since then, many actors, writers and comedians have and continue to voice their support for Kimmel. Outside Disney’s Burbank, California, studios, hundreds protested on Thursday, led by the Writer’s Guild of America and co-organized with the group Burbank Against ICE.
On Friday, Michael Eisner, the ex-CEO of Disney, appeared to criticize his former company.
“Where has all the leadership gone? If not for university presidents, law firm managing partners, and corporate chief executives standing up against bullies, who then will step up for the first amendment?,” Eisner wrote on X, calling Carr’s actions “yet another example of out-of-control intimidation.”
Carr has maintained in a series of posts on X that the decision stemmed from local stations making “programming decisions” that are “responsive to the local communities they serve” — something he claims Kimmel’s show was not doing.
“Broadcasters have long retained the right to not air national programs that they believe are inconsistent with the public interest, including their local communities’ values,” Carr wrote in another post.
Carr’s role in Kimmel’s removal also has caused some concern on the right.
Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, on Friday became among the most high-profile conservatives to decry Carr’s comments, saying on his podcast that what Kimmel said was wrong but also that what Carr was doing was “unbelievably dangerous,” most notably threatening the broadcast licenses of ABC affiliates (which Trump has also threatened).
“I like Brendan Carr. He’s a good guy. He’s the chairman of the FCC. I work closely with him, but what he said there is dangerous as hell,” Cruz added.
Some right-leaning voices in the comedy community have broken partisan lines to criticize what they say is an attack on free speech.
Podcaster and comedian Tim Dillon said Kimmel should still be on the air in an Instagram post and called his suspension “a politically motivated hit job.”
“Anyone who cares about the ability to speak freely for a living should be disturbed by this,” Dillon said.
Screenshots of Instagram stories posted by comedians Andrew Schulz and Sam Morril on Thursday also appeared to push back against Kimmel’s suspension.
“The Epstein list won’t be released but Jimmy Kimmel will be?” Morril wrote.
Many of Kimmel’s late-night peers have also come to his defense, with Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert — whose show was recently canceled — mocking Trump on Thursday night in relation to Kimmel’s suspension.
In recent years, Disney has found itself dragged into a number of politically-charged battles — and lawsuits. In 2024, the company settled litigation with Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis that started after it opposed the state’s “Don’t Say Gay” bill.
In 2025, Disney and its subsidiary Lucasfilm, which is behind the “Star Wars” franchise, settled a lawsuit with actor Gina Carano after she claimed she was wrongfully terminated from“The Mandalorian” TV series for expressing right-wing views on social media. In some of her posts, made in previous years, Carano had likened modern political divides to the Holocaust and mocked people who wore masks during the pandemic. In a statement after the settlement was reached, Lucasfilm said, “With this lawsuit concluded, we look forward to identifying opportunities to work together with Ms. Carano in the near future.”
More recently, Disney’s ABC News also settled a defamation lawsuit with Trump, paying $15 million to his future presidential museum or foundation.
Disney CEO Bob Iger has countered the narrative that Disney has bent toward either political party’s ideologies.
In 2023, he said the company’s movies had been too focused on “messaging” when instead they should be focused on entertaining, in an effort to improve the quality of Disney’s movies. The following year, Iger said his primary mission for the company was to entertain versus focusing on the “woke agenda.”
“I like being able to entertain if you can infuse it with positive messages and have a good impact on the world. Fantastic. But that should not be the objective. When I came back, what I have really tried to do is to return to our roots,” he said.
In addition to Lindelof’’s and Maslany’s calls to push back on Disney and its products, some more Disney boycott calls have percolated online in the last couple days, though it’s not clear how widespread it has been or if it will have a lasting effect on the company.
A number of celebrities, including NSYNC band member Lance Bass and “Transparent” star Amy Landecker, have shared screenshots to social media that show their cancellations of their Disney-affiliated subscriptions.
As the message gained traction over the last day across social media sites, Google Trends showed an uptick of searches for the terms “cancel Disney Plus” and “boycott Disney,” as posters declared they were leaving the streaming platforms behind.
Bill Simmons, a popular podcast host and friend of Kimmel’s who also used to work on “Jimmy Kimmel Live!,” said in a podcast posted early Friday that he thought there was a good chance the show would get canceled, but that pushback against Kimmel’s suspension had caused him to reconsider.
“What changed over the last 24 plus hours is there was such a groundswell,” Simmons said. “This just felt like this became the moment. If we stand by and let something like this happen, what’s next? Where do we go?”
Steve Kopack contributed.
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