Molly McNearney says she “naively” assumed that the First Amendment right to freedom of speech was something she didn’t really have to think about — “until Sept. 16, 2025.”
The following day, ABC suspended Jimmy Kimmel Live! following a thinly veiled threat from FCC chairman Brendan Carr to pull the licenses of network affiliates over comments Kimmel made about the murder of conservative activist Charlie Kirk. McNearney is the co-head writer and executive producer of the late night show (and is married to Kimmel).
“It’s something I took for granted,” McNearney said in her keynote speech Wednesday at The Hollywood Reporter’s 2025 Women in Entertainment breakfast, presented by Lifetime. “Something I thought I’d always have, like my period. Did you guys know that those just stop?”
“Your period stops,” she continued. “And it turns out your freedom in this country can too. We experienced it most recently in 2022 when the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade and we got another taste of it two months ago. I watched a show, co-workers, friends and the man I love be put on ‘indefinite suspension’ after our thin-skinned president asked for his removal and his FCC chair publicly threatened the company we work for. It is a fragile time for freedom.”
McNearney admitted that when she was asked to deliver the keynote speech at WIE, she had a bout of impostor syndrome: “I came up with ‘Mean Tweets’ on Jimmy Kimmel Live!, and I’ve been asked to talk about the Bill of Rights?” So she did what a lot of people do when they feel overwhelmed and started scrolling on Instagram.
“And then it occurred to me, in my anxious and frazzled state. This is exactly how we lose our freedom: With perimenopause. No. If anything, perimenopause rage is going to save us and get us all our freedoms back. We lose our freedom when we are scared and we are distracted. I have been very consumed by both.
“Fear is contagious. But the good news is, so is bravery. I’ve watched Jimmy and my friends and my co-workers hold our leaders accountable without fear night after night. I’ve watched other late night shows and journalists and lawyers and activists and politicians and civilians in the street stick their neck out there for all of us.”
She then asked those in the room to use their voices and rights “to fight for what we know is right.”
“There is a woman out there who was separated from her children by masked men right here in our streets and sent to a country she does not call home. She needs our voice. There is a woman who is not going to be able to afford her sick mother’s insurance premiums. She needs our voice. There is a woman who is being denied the ability to make choices about her own body and her own life, and she needs our voice. There is a woman burying her boy, shot for being black. She needs our voice.”
Introducing McNearney, Kimmel joked that “no one — not the FCC, not ABC standards and practices, not even President Trump himself — has taken more action to infringe upon and forcibly limit my speech than Molly McNearney.” He then related a story about how their son Billy asked where babies come from, and he distracted him with a story about how Kimmel’s mother fashioned an ill-fated pair of homemade stilts for him.
“When we got into bed that night, I said, ‘Did you catch my move in the car, when Billy asked where babies come from and I pulled out that story about stilts?’ You know what she told me? She told me I did the wrong thing. She told me that when children have questions, parents are supposed to answer those questions. And of course I argued, and then she told me I should write a book called How to Not Do Everything. This is the person you picked to talk about free speech.”
McNearney concluded by noting that President Donald Trump has called for Jimmy Kimmel Live! to be canceled multiple times, “and I’m one of the lucky ones.”
“We got knocked down, and with all of you, you helped us back up,” she said. “I cannot thank you enough. Keep doing it. Please keep fighting for what you believe. Say what you want to say and don’t sugarcoat it because it’s easier, because somebody might get mad. Make people mad! Every one of our freedoms comes back to speech. It is the foundation of everything that is good about this country. Don’t give in and don’t give up.”
THR’s Women in Entertainment is sponsored by Delta Air Lines, Medicube, Reyka Vodka and Seven Bucks Productions, in partnership with Big Brothers Big Sisters of Greater Los Angeles, Entertainment Industry Foundation, Gersh, Chapman University and Loyola Marymount University.
