Jimmy Kimmel Came Back From Summer Vacation to Brag and Got the Worst News of His Career

September 12, 2026 Cat2, The Media
Brasil Creativo via shutterstock

 

ABC yanked Jimmy Kimmel Live! off the air last year after he suggested Charlie Kirk’s assassin was one of the “MAGA gang.”

Tuesday night, Kimmel strutted back from summer vacation and told FCC Chairman Brendan Carr he won.

But Jimmy Kimmel came back from summer vacation to brag and got the worst news of his career.

The Man Who Needed a Government Enemy to Stay Relevant

Kimmel opened his 4,000th episode not with a joke – but with a victory lap aimed at the regulator who nearly ended his career.

“There are those who used the regulatory might of the FCC to unconstitutionally try to make sure we didn’t last this long,” Kimmel told his studio audience. “But we did it the hard way, Brendan.”

The bravado is something.

 

Kimmel made those “MAGA gang” remarks hours after Kirk’s assassination – before a single fact about the shooter had been confirmed.

Bob Iger, the man who runs Disney, called the remark “in bad taste.”

ABC pulled the show and asked Kimmel to apologize.

Kimmel came back and framed the whole thing as a free speech crusade.

Now he’s celebrating 4,000 episodes of a show that – according to multiple sources inside ABC – won’t make it to 4,001 after May 2027.

A One-Year Extension That Nobody Believes

Kimmel signed a one-year contract extension with ABC in December 2025.

The deal runs through May 2027.

Insiders at the network have a name for it: his “goodbye year.”

“Everyone at ABC knows exactly what it means – this is his last lap,” one source told entertainment columnist Rob Shuter. “Full stop.”

Kimmel has said publicly that ABC told him “quite specifically” the show is profitable.

He’s also said he wants to leave on his own terms.

That’s now more complicated – because Carr’s FCC ordered an early license review of all eight ABC broadcast stations this spring, triggered after Trump and Melania demanded Kimmel be fired over a joke at her expense.

 

Kimmel had cracked that Melania had “a glow like an expectant widow” in a monologue spoofing the White House Correspondents’ Dinner – which was canceled after a gunman attempted to enter the venue.

The FCC’s license review normally happens every eight years – the next ABC renewals weren’t due until 2028.

Carr says it’s about Disney’s DEI practices, and that investigation had been building for months before Kimmel’s Melania joke gave it a news hook.

The Numbers Tell the Real Story

The White House called Kimmel a “no-talent loser” Tuesday.

They’re not entirely wrong – at least about the ratings.

Jimmy Kimmel Live! viewership has dropped approximately 20% from its peak years, according to Nielsen data.

The show now ranks third in the late-night ratings race it once led.

CBS’s The Late Show with Stephen Colbert – which Kimmel himself says CBS admits loses $40 million a year – still outdraws him.

Late-night television as a format is dying.

The 18-49 demographic – the one advertisers actually pay for – has been bleeding out for years.

 

Kimmel knows it.

His answer Tuesday was apparently to spend an entire monologue calling Trump fat, old, and incompetent – then tell Brendan Carr he lost.

The Last Trump Card in a Fading Hand

Here’s what Kimmel didn’t say Tuesday: he needs Trump more than Trump needs him.

The suspension – the one he called unconstitutional government censorship – gave Jimmy Kimmel Live! the biggest news cycle it had seen in years.

His fill-in hosts Rosie O’Donnell and Jelly Roll became national stories.

Without the FCC, without Brendan Carr, without Donald Trump as a villain – Kimmel is a late-night host with third-place ratings and a contract that ends in eight months.

That’s the part of the story he didn’t mention in his 4,000th episode.

The show that survived the FCC won’t survive 2027.

Sources:

  • Hanna Panreck, “Jimmy Kimmel Returns From Lengthy Hiatus With Defiant Message to FCC Chair Brendan Carr,” Fox News, September 9, 2026.
  • Jerome Hudson, “Jimmy Kimmel Cracks Fat Jokes, Natalie Harp Barbs in Trump-Obsessed Late-Night Return,” Breitbart, September 9, 2026.
  • Rob Shuter, “Exclusive: Jimmy Kimmel to End ABC Run in 2027, Sources Say,” Substack, 2026.
  • “Report: ABC Set to Part Ways With Jimmy Kimmel as Contract Expiry Looms,” Media Week, 2026.
  • “Jimmy Kimmel Isn’t Sure What ABC Wants to Do With Him After 2027,” Late Nighter, 2026.