For about four or five days in September 2025, the people who make Jimmy Kimmel Live didn’t know whether they had jobs anymore. Almost a year later, they’re still not sure.
As we approach the anniversary of the Trump administration and the right-wing media collaborating to have the late-night show pulled from the airwaves temporarily, Kimmel and his staff are up for Best Variety Series at the Primetime Emmy Awards. Those long days of uncertainty may have ended triumphantly — with a monologue that drew national attention — but the shock of what happened hasn’t really worn off for them.
Ahead of the start of Emmys voting, Jimmy Kimmel Live executive producers Jennifer Sharron and Erin Irwin, head writer Molly McNearney (also an EP) and Danny Ricker, and co-head writers Gary Greenberg and Josh Halloway spoke with Gold Derby about the fallout from their unexpected hiatus and how they worked with Kimmel to craft the perfect return.
Gold Derby: The episode submitted for Emmys consideration was the return back to airwaves after a very shocking departure from them. To set the background, how long was the period of time where there was a real question of whether the show would be back?
Molly McNearney (executive producer/head writer): Still happening.
Wow!
McNearney: I guess it was technically five or four days. I think we learned that the day before we returned, right?
Danny Ricker (head writer): I think so, yeah.
Josh Halloway (co-head writer): It felt much longer.
McNearney: It felt like it felt like a month, I’ll be honest.
What was the mood of those four days?
McNearney: Mostly diarrhea. A lot of fear and disbelief. I mean, we were all pretty shocked. We all went through a wave of shock, sadness, anger, and then total incomplete gratitude. Two days before the show came back, we just suddenly felt like a rise of like, “My god, we’re gonna be OK. People are angry.” It felt very unifying and really wonderful actually.
Jennifer Sharron (executive producer): I feel like we were all not sure what to say. And we were kind of waiting. And then to see the influx of all the support from our peers, from celebrities, from politicians on social media and the news, I think it really made us believe that we would be OK. That unifying support made me feel better for the country, to be really honest.
Ricker: The actual day it happened was so surreal because we had been working on our show all day. And then in the afternoon, when we start to solidify the monologue, we get this text from Jimmy going, “You guys better come over to my office.” And we go, “Uh-oh, that’s not good.” So we went over there, and we talked about what was happening. Jimmy always has CNN on in his office throughout the day as he’s writing the monologue, and then we looked up, we go, “Hey, look, you’re on the TV.”
Erin Irwin (executive producer): We heard people out in front, and we weren’t sure if they were protesting us or what was going on. I went down and peeked outside, and they were here for us. They had signs made already and in support of our show and Jimmy and free speech. That was very overwhelming. We were all a little emotional.
Halloway: I heard from more people than I even knew that I knew. The the level of support was just amazing. And so quickly too, because there was about a 10-minute period where we knew what had happened, but it hadn’t broke yet. An it was just very silent. Then suddenly, it was just out there.
McNearney: I definitely heard from more people about this than anything in my life — childbirth, marriage, anything.
What was Jimmy doing during all of this? What role did he play for the staff in such an unsure time?
Irwin: He’s always amazingly calm and keeps us balanced. We’re the ones who kind of get more emotional or angry or sad. And he is just the strength and holds it all up for us,. He’s so mentally stable that it carries us. And he was great throughout the whole thing.
McNearney: It’s almost annoying. He’s the most steady person, and we’re all like chihuahuas.
Once you knew you were coming back, how was it decided what the tone of that return show was going to be?
McNearney: Jimmy really wrote all of his thoughts down, and then he sent them to us. We loved them, and there wasn’t really much to add. He just wanted to be completely and totally honest about what happened and also about his feelings of gratitude towards everyone. We often get asked if it’s changed the way we do the show. It hasn’t at all. If anything, it’s just reassured that we’re doing the right thing — that we’re t telling the truth every night and hoping to make people laugh and feel less alone.
Halloway: Usually when there’s a really special monologue, he has already figured it out, and we’re just there to supplement and support that.
Ricker: Really when you think about it, someone in his position could have done a lot of vastly different types of monologues in that situation. He could have been very angry. There’s a lot of emotions he could have expressed. What he made clear to us from the beginning was that this moment is not about our show. Our show was at the center of a moment, but what had just happened was the government had pressured a show off the air due to free speech issues. That was the most important thing for him to hit. Obviously, he went through a lot and we all went through a lot, but the most important thing for him was to talk about what this means for the country. And that was really kind of the guiding light in that monologue for us.
This article and video are presented by Disney/ABC.