Jimmy Kimmel is still railing against his suspension from ABC but admitted on Wednesday that he has an ‘aggressive and unpleasant’ side.
The liberal host sparked fury from conservatives and was temporarily suspended for comments he made after the assassination of right-wing commentator Charlie Kirk.
‘I didn’t think there was a big problem,’ Kimmel said over a week after his return to TV during a conversation at the Bloomberg Screentime event in Hollywood.
‘I just saw it as distortion on the part of some of the right-wing media networks, and I aimed to correct it.’
Kimmel shared that he spent the weekend following his suspension speaking with Disney Entertainment Co-Chair Dana Walden about how to address the situation.
‘It helped me think everything through, and it helped me just kind of understand where everyone was coming from,’ Kimmel said.
‘I can sometimes be reactionary. I can sometimes be aggressive, and I can sometimes be unpleasant. And I think that it helped me really having those days to think about it.’
Comedian Jimmy Kimmel was briefly taken off the airwaves last month over remarks about the murder of right-wing activist Charlie Kirk
Jimmy Kimmel’s return to late night following his suspension saw his ratings triple and reach his largest audience in over a decade. However the ratings bonanza was short-lived
But Kimmel also said on Wednesday said he hopes the outrage over his late-night show’s suspension following pressure from the Trump administration had drawn a ‘bold red line’ for free speech.
‘I hope that we drew a really, really bold red line as Americans about what we will and will not accept,’ said Kimmel. ‘I really hope that that’s what comes out of all this.’
Disney-owned ABC brought back Kimmel’s show after a week-long hiatus, and Kimmel experienced a short-lived ratings bonanza when he returned.
Kimmel’s removal from the airwaves came shortly after Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Chairman Brendan Carr appeared to threaten the licenses of stations broadcasting the show unless they did so.
Kimmel said his comments about Kirk’s alleged killer had been ‘intentionally and, I think, maliciously mischaracterized’ by Republicans.
But he said he would ‘love to have Trump on the show’ in future.
‘I wouldn’t necessarily be interested in Brendan Carr on the show,’ he deadpanned.
Reflecting on the boycotts by companies owning dozens of ABC affiliate stations, Kimmel on Wednesday admitted he initially thought his show was permanently finished.
‘The idea that I would not have whatever it was, 40 affiliates… I was like, “Well, that’s it,”‘ he told the Bloomberg Screentime conference in Los Angeles.
People walk outside the El Capitan Entertainment Centre where the Jimmy Kimmel Live! show is performed
‘I said to my wife, “that’s it. It’s over,” he said.
As many as 6.5million people tuned to Kimmel the night of his return last month, which was a three times the show’s usual audience and the biggest in over a decade.
But two days later, Kimmel averaged 2.3million – a shocking 64 percent drop since the show’s return episode, Fox News reported.
Notably, Kimmel lost 73 percent of the viewers in the coveted demographic of adults aged 25-54, getting just 465,000.
Typically, Kimmel gets about 1.8 million viewers each night on television. The numbers released by ABC do not include viewership from streaming services.
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Jimmy Kimmel still ranting over suspension as star admits he has ‘aggressive and unpleasant’ side