Former Disney CEO Bob Iger is defending the company’s decision to suspend Jimmy Kimmel Live! last year following Kimmel’s comments about the assassination of Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk, insisting the move had nothing to do with pressure from President Donald Trump’s administration and everything to do with the remarks themselves.
This, of course, flies in the face of Kimmel’s official narrative, in which he routinely claims that his suspension was political retaliation from Trump himself.
Speaking to the Financial Times, Iger rejected the growing narrative that Disney disciplined Kimmel in an effort to appease the Trump White House amid the administration’s ongoing scrutiny of the company.
“That was not the case,” Iger said. “We thought it was in bad taste.”
Those comments mark the first time Iger has publicly addressed the suspension, which ignited a firestorm in September 2025 after Kimmel attempted to tie Charlie Kirk’s alleged assassin to supporters of President Trump despite a lack of evidence.
Bob Iger Says Jimmy Kimmel’s Comments Crossed the Line
According to Iger, Disney’s concern wasn’t political pressure but Kimmel’s handling of the tragedy.
Iger revealed that Disney asked Kimmel to issue an apology, explaining: “We just wanted him to acknowledge that it was an ill-timed and probably inappropriate comment.”
Instead, Kimmel initially doubled down.
Jimmy Kimmel in his UK Christmas Address – UK Channel 4
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Following Charlie Kirk’s assassination, Kimmel told his audience: “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.”
At the time, authorities had not presented evidence that the alleged gunman was a member of what Kimmel described as the “MAGA gang,” making the remarks immediately controversial. In fact, there was mounting evidence that the alleged shooter was staunchly anti-Trump by that point.
Disney ultimately suspended Jimmy Kimmel Live! indefinitely. The suspension lasted from Sept. 17 through Sept. 22, 2025.
Kimmel Later Claimed His Comments Were Mischaracterized
After returning to the air, Kimmel defended himself during an interview with Bloomberg’s Lucas Shaw.
“I didn’t think there was a big problem,” Kimmel said. “I just saw it as distortion on the part of some of the right-wing media networks, and I aimed to correct it.”
Kimmel admitted he only realized the seriousness of the situation after Disney pulled his show off the air.
Jimmy Kimmel reading tweets from President Trump at The Oscars – YouTube, New York Post
“I can sometimes be reactionary. I can sometimes be aggressive. I can sometimes be unpleasant,” he said. “I think that it helped me, really, having those days to think about it was helpful.”
Despite that acknowledgment, Kimmel continued insisting the controversy stemmed from bad-faith reporting rather than his own words.
“It was intentionally, and I think maliciously, mischaracterized,” Kimmel argued.
He also expressed sympathy for Disney executives caught in the middle of the backlash.
“I think what has happened over the last, like, three weeks, I think was very unfair to my bosses at Disney,” he said. “I don’t think anyone should ever be put in a position like this. It is insane.”
Kimmel and His Wife Repeatedly Pointed the Finger at President Trump
Bob Iger’s assertion that Disney suspended Jimmy Kimmel solely because executives believed his comments were “in bad taste” also directly contradicts the narrative Kimmel and his wife, Jimmy Kimmel Live! executive producer Molly McNearney, have publicly advanced for months.
During an appearance on the We Can Do Hard Things podcast, McNearney recalled that the couple’s young son asked whether President Donald Trump had been responsible for his father’s suspension from ABC.
Rather than dismissing the idea, Kimmel admitted he told his son exactly that.
“I think I said yes,” he said.
Jimmy Kimmel on Colbert – YouTube, The Late Show With Stephen Colbert
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The exchange suggested that Kimmel himself believed political retaliation from the Trump administration—not Disney’s own judgment over his remarks—was the driving force behind the decision.
McNearney later continued advancing that narrative publicly. Speaking at The Hollywood Reporter’s Women in Entertainment event, she described the suspension as occurring during what she called a “fragile time for freedom” and criticized President Trump as “thin-skinned,” arguing that political pressure was creating a chilling effect on speech.
Taken together, the couple repeatedly framed Disney’s decision as the product of outside political influence rather than corporate accountability.
Iger’s comments now challenge that version of events head-on.
A screenshot of Jimmy Kimmel crying on TV after the election of Donald Trump – YouTube, Jimmy Kimmel Live
When asked directly whether Disney suspended Kimmel because of pressure from the Trump administration amid increasing federal scrutiny of the company, Iger flatly rejected the claim.
“That was not the case,” he said.
That creates a stark divide between Disney’s official explanation and the public account Kimmel and McNearney have spent months promoting, with Iger now making clear that, at least from Disney’s perspective, politics played no role in the suspension.
Disney Finds Itself in the Middle of an Increasingly Political Storm
Iger’s comments arrive following his departure as CEO at a time when Disney continues to battle accusations from multiple directions over its political involvement.
On one side, critics argued Disney had tolerated inflammatory rhetoric from one of its highest-profile television personalities until public backlash became impossible to ignore. On the other, some commentators claimed Disney acted only because it feared retaliation from the Trump administration as federal scrutiny of the company’s broadcast licenses intensified.
Bob Iger | 2019 Disney Legends Awards Ceremony | D23 EXPO 2019. Photo Credit: nagi usano from Tokyo, Japan, CC BY-SA 2.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0>, via Wikimedia Commons
Iger is now attempting to put that speculation to rest, insisting the suspension was a judgment about taste and responsibility—not politics.
Whether that explanation satisfies critics remains to be seen.
For Disney, however, the incident remains one of the clearest examples of the difficult balancing act media companies now face when politically charged commentary from on-air talent collides with public expectations and corporate accountability.
How do you feel about Bob Iger and his comments on the suspension of Jimmy Kimmel?
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