Jimmy Kimmel’s Show Will Return to the Air 6 Days After Being Pulled ‘Indefinitely’

Jimmy Kimmel Live! isn’t over just yet.

On Monday, Sept. 22, the Walt Disney Company issued a statement confirming that the show will return on Tuesday, Sept. 23.

“Last Wednesday, we made the decision to suspend production on the show to avoid further inflaming a tense situation at an emotional moment for our country. It is a decision we made because we felt some of the comments were ill-timed and thus insensitive,” the statement read, referring to comments Jimmy Kimmel made on Sept. 15 about Charlie Kirk’s assassination.

“We have spent the last days having thoughtful conversations with Jimmy, and after those conversations, we reached the decision to return the show on Tuesday.”

The Sept. 15 episode broadcast of Kimmel’s show saw him discussing world events in his opening monologue, which eventually shifted to the topic of Charlie Kirk’s death. The right-wing commentator, who founded Turning Point USA, was fatally shot on Sept. 10 while at a speaking event at Utah Valley University. He was 31.

Tyler Robinson was charged with aggravated murder in connection with Kirk’s death.

“We hit some new lows over the weekend with the MAGA gang desperately trying to characterize this kid who murdered Charlie Kirk as anything other than one of them and doing everything they can to score political points from it,” Kimmel said in his monologue. “In between the finger-pointing, there was grieving.”

“On Friday, the White House flew the flags at half staff, which got some criticism, but on a human level, you can see how hard the president is taking this,” he continued, before a clip played of President Donald Trump partially addressing reporters’ questions about how he was coping with former ally Kirk’s death before moving commenting on the construction of the White House ballroom.

The cameras then cut back to Kimmel. “Yes, he’s at the fourth stage of grief, construction,” the comedian said.

Prior to the episode, Kimmel offered his condolences on social media to Kirk’s family.

“Instead of the angry finger-pointing, can we just for one day agree that it is horrible and monstrous to shoot another human?” he wrote. “On behalf of my family, we send love to the Kirks and to all the children, parents and innocents who fall victim to senseless gun violence.”

On Sept. 17, an ABC spokesperson confirmed to PEOPLE it was pulling Jimmy Kimmel Live! indefinitely.

The network’s decision followed Nexstar Media’s decision to preempt airings of the program. Nexstar Media is the largest local broadcast and digital media company in the U.S. that owns more than 200 television stations in 116 markets.

Nexstar said in a statement to PEOPLE that its “owned and partner television stations affiliated with the ABC Television Network will preempt Jimmy Kimmel Live! for the foreseeable future, beginning with tonight’s show.”

The statement added that the company “strongly objects to recent comments made by Mr. Kimmel concerning the killing of Charlie Kirk and will replace the show with other programming in its ABC-affiliated markets.”

Andrew Alford, President of Nexstar’s broadcasting division, elaborated on the decision in a statement to PEOPLE, saying, “Mr. Kimmel’s comments about the death of Mr. Kirk are offensive and insensitive at a critical time in our national political discourse, and we do not believe they reflect the spectrum of opinions, views, or values of the local communities in which we are located.”

Alford continued, “Continuing to give Mr. Kimmel a broadcast platform in the communities we serve is simply not in the public interest at the current time, and we have made the difficult decision to preempt his show in an effort to let cooler heads prevail as we move toward the resumption of respectful, constructive dialogue.”

The company recently announced plans to acquire rival broadcast company Tegna for $6.2 billion, putting Nexstar in 80% of America’s TV-owning households, per a press release. The acquisition requires final approval from the Trump-controlled Federal Communications Commission.

Last week, FCC Chair Brendan Carr praised Nexstar on pressuring ABC to remove Kimmel, writing on X that “it is important for broadcasters to push back on Disney programming that they determine falls short of community values.”

Kimmel and Trump had been engaged in a long-standing feud prior to this point, with the political figure even predicting that the former’s talk show would be the next axed after the cancellation of Stephen Colbert’s show.

At the time Kimmel’s show was suspended, Trump noted on Truth Social that this was “great news for America.”

The late-night show being pulled off the air sparked outrage across Hollywood and amongst other late-night hosts. Jimmy Fallon, Seth Meyers, John Oliver, Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert all spoke out in support of Kimmel following the news, as did Conan O’Brien, David Letterman, Howard Stern, and the ladies of The View.

Hours before the news that Kimmel would return on Sept. 22, over 400 celebrities signed a letter defending the constitutional right to free speech and supporting Kimmel. Jennifer Aniston, Ben Affleck and Tom Hanks were among the signatures on the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) letter, along with prominent Disney star Selena Gomez, Pedro Pascal, Diego Luna, Martin Short and Meryl Streep.

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Even though Kimmel has been able to resume production on his show, he had previously teased in a February 2024 interview with the Los Angeles Times that the three-year contract he signed in 2022 would possibly be his last.

“I hate to even say it, because everyone’s laughing at me now — each time I think that, and then it turns out to be not the case,” he joked at the time. “I still have a little more than two years left on my contract, and that seems pretty good. That seems like enough.”