Stephen Colbert and Jimmy Fallon put any late night competition aside when their fellow host Jimmy Kimmel returned from suspension on Tuesday night.
“I’m so grateful to have this show,” said Colbert in his The Late Show monologue, speaking to the broader shifting moment in late night television as he himself readies to sign off at the end of the season following CBS canceling his beloved late night series. “I’m gonna say thanks to everyone in here, and to everyone watching from home — who I think might just be my wife, Evie. Because everybody else is probably watching ABC because tonight, Jimmy Kimmel returned to the airwaves.”
Colbert went on to say, “I’m glad Kimmel’s back. He is a wonderful fella. To know him well is to admire him immensely — even if he takes the whole summer off.”
Over on NBC, Fallon also opened his monologue with a brief nod to Kimmel’s ABC return: “If you’re tuning in to see what I’ll say about my suspension the last couple days, again, you’re watching the wrong Jimmy… Dad. The other Jimmy, Dad!” he joked.
Kimmel’s return to ABC on Tuesday night featured a nearly 30-minute monologue where the Jimmy Kimmel Live! host thanked those who supported him during his suspension, addressed his controversial comments about Charlie Kirk and, most passionately, defended free speech. His monologue is largely being hailed as meeting the moment, and is likely to break a record on YouTube to become his most-watched monologue in years, if not ever.
“Look, I never imagined I would be in a situation like this,” Kimmel said on Tuesday night. “I barely paid attention in school. One thing I did learn from from Lenny Bruce and George Carlin and Howard Stern, is that a government threat to silence a comedian the President doesn’t like is anti American. So I’m glad we have some solidarity on that from the Right and Left and from those in the middle — like Joe Rogan. Maybe the silver lining from this is we found one thing we can agree on … Let’s stop letting these politicians tell us what they want and tell them what we want.”
Going into Tuesday, Kimmel’s fellow late night hosts Colbert, Jon Stewart and Seth Meyers had all celebrated Jimmy Kimmel Live! returning to the air after ABC lifted the show’s suspension. Meyers hailed the news as “a massive national backlash to Trump’s crackdown on free speech, even among conservatives.”
ABC parent The Walt Disney Co. had announced on Monday that Kimmel’s show would be returning to broadcast after its brief suspension ignited a national debate over free speech and the Trump administration’s pressure tactics. His show, however, will remain dark in a large swath of the U.S., with Sinclair Broadcast Group and Nexstar saying they will still preempt the show.
