{"id":251450,"date":"2025-09-24T16:12:10","date_gmt":"2025-09-24T16:12:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/251450\/"},"modified":"2025-09-24T16:12:10","modified_gmt":"2025-09-24T16:12:10","slug":"kimmel-returns-to-late-night-with-an-emotional-monologue-but-no-apologies-following-suspension","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/251450\/","title":{"rendered":"Kimmel returns to late night with an emotional monologue but no apologies following suspension"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>NEW YORK (AP) \u2014 Jimmy Kimmel offered no apologies in his return to late-night television and, in an emotional monologue where he appeared close to tears, said he was not trying to joke about the killing of conservative activist Charlie Kirk. He also paid tribute to Kirk\u2019s widow.<\/p>\n<p>Nearly 8 million people had watched Kimmel\u2019s first show back from a nearly one-week suspension on YouTube by midmorning Wednesday. Typically, he gets about 1.8 million viewers each night on television. Ratings were due to be released later in the day.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.pbs.org\/newshour\/show\/why-some-stations-wont-air-jimmy-kimmels-return-to-late-night\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\"><strong>WATCH:<\/strong> Why some stations won\u2019t air Jimmy Kimmel\u2019s return to late night<\/a><\/p>\n<p>In his first public comments following the suspension, Kimmel did not hesitate to joke about his frequent foil, President Donald Trump, and credited him for what is expected to be a ratings bonanza.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHe tried,\u201d Kimmel said. \u201cHe did his best to cancel me. Instead, he forced millions of people to watch the show. That backfired bigly. He might have to release the Epstein files to distract us from this now.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Kimmel said: \u201cIt was never my intention to make light of the murder of a young man. I don\u2019t think there\u2019s anything funny about it.\u201d He said Kirk\u2019s widow, Erika, performed a \u201cselfless act of grace\u201d in publicly forgiving her husband\u2019s killer.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThat is an example we should follow,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>He added: \u201cI don\u2019t think what I\u2019m going to say is going to make much of a difference. If you like me, you like me. If you don\u2019t, you don\u2019t. I have no illusions about changing anyone\u2019s mind.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Andrew Kolvet, a spokesperson for Turning Point USA, the organization Kirk founded that is now headed by his widow, posted on X that Kimmel\u2019s monologue was \u201cnot good enough\u201d and that he needed to apologize.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cYes, Jimmy got emotional,\u201d Kolvet wrote. \u201cSo what. He\u2019s emotional for himself because he almost torched his entire career.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Meanwhile, comic Ben Stiller posted that it was a \u201cbrilliant monologue.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The incident triggered a national discussion about freedom of speech and Trump\u2019s ability to police the words of journalists, commentators and even comics. In a social media post, the president criticized ABC for bringing Kimmel back and threatened a lawsuit.<\/p>\n<p>Kimmel took the stage to a long standing ovation and chants of \u201cJimmy, Jimmy.\u201d One audience member, Walter Bates, said after the taping that Kimmel\u2019s discussion of Kirk\u2019s widow was \u201ca very moving moment\u201d that caused both him and his wife to get \u201cvery emotional.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Associated Press Writer Liam McEwan in Los Angeles contributed to this report.<\/p>\n<p>\n                    We&#8217;re not going anywhere.\n                <\/p>\n<p class=\"invite_body\">\n                    Stand up for truly independent, trusted news that you can count on!\n                <\/p>\n<p>                <a href=\"https:\/\/give.newshour.org\/page\/85597\/donate\/1?ea.tracking.id=nh_july_2025_rescission_article&amp;supporter.appealCode=N2507QW07000AA\" class=\"donation-link ga-click-funding ga-click-ender-funding\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\"><br \/>\n                    Donate now<\/p>\n<p>                <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"NEW YORK (AP) \u2014 Jimmy Kimmel offered no apologies in his return to late-night television and, in an&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":251451,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5123],"tags":[1582,276,2961,224,5337],"class_list":{"0":"post-251450","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-los-angeles","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-california","10":"tag-la","11":"tag-los-angeles","12":"tag-losangeles"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115260158857789929","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/251450","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=251450"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/251450\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/251451"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=251450"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=251450"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=251450"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}