Former Disney CEO Bob Iger came up with a fresh excuse for why Jimmy Kimmel was temporarily pulled off the air last year.
Iger, who stepped down from the role in March, publicly discussed Kimmel’s 2025 suspension for the first time in a new interview with the Financial Times. The 75-year-old executive reportedly made the final call to suspend Kimmel after he made remarks about the assassination of conservative commentator Charlie Kirk.
When asked about the controversial suspension, Iger said the move was misrepresented as a political concession to the Trump administration.
“That was not the case… We thought it was in bad taste,” said Iger. “We just wanted him to acknowledge that it was an ill-timed and probably inappropriate comment.”
But the decision led to internal backlash, with many employees seeing Iger’s call as a submission to MAGA pressure. One source told Deadline that the move was a “betrayal,” while another said, “This is not how we thought Bob would handle this.”
Disney’s former CEO, Michael Eisner, joined in the criticism, without explicitly naming Iger.
“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 at the time.
Disney was once again thrown into the mix of another Trump-Kimmel feud after the ABC host joked that first lady Melania Trump has “a glow like an expectant widow.” His quip came just days before an alleged assassination attempt made at the White House Correspondents’ dinner in April. In the wake of the attempted shooting, President Trump and his wife both called for Kimmel, 58, to be fired.
This time, the parent company of Kimmel’s network did not give in. Iger said he “wholeheartedly” supports their decision. “I’m thoroughly supportive. It’s what we anticipated needing to do if the government’s threats turned into action,” he told the Financial Times.
Kimmel’s comments about Kirk, who was killed at age 31, prompted ABC to pull Jimmy Kimmel Live off the air “indefinitely.”
The ABC host returned to late-night television days later to a cheering audience, delivering an emotional monologue to his fans and supporters.
“I want to make something clear, because it’s important to me as a human, and that is you understand that it was never my intention to make light of the murder of a young man,” Kimmel said at the time, tearing up.
“I don’t think there’s anything funny about it. I posted a message on Instagram on the day he was killed sending love to his family and asking for compassion—and I meant it. And I still do,“ he continued.
But the late-night host has not wavered from his position as one of Trump’s fiercest critics, even after the president made renewed calls to have him fired. Instead, the Emmy-winning host hit back, addressing the president on air.
“If incompetently presiding over not just one of, but the lowest ratings in history is the reason I should be fired,” he said, speaking to Trump, “we should both be out of a job, because you’re not doing too good either.”
Iger’s comments about the Kimmel controversy come after the longtime CEO exited Disney and handed the role to successor Josh D’Amaro earlier this year. The media executive held the top position at the company twice: from 2005 to 2020 and again from 2022 to 2026.
