Dissent Grows At Disney Over Jimmy Kimmel Benching As Talks About His Possible Return Continue
EXCLUSIVE: As the fallout from Disney’s suspension Wednesday of Jimmy Kimmel has seen discord erupt at the House of Mouse, top brass have been engaged in talks to get the late night host back on the air.
In a series of mainly virtual meetings, Disney executives and Kimmel’s team have been at it most of today. These talks are taking place under the cloud of Kimmel being pulled off the air at the 11th hour on September 17 after fury from the right and the Trump administration over remarks the host made on his September 15 show about the reaction to the fatal shooting of the Turning Point USA founder.
The expressed aim of these digital sit-downs is to secure a pathway that all parties can shoulder on both ending the indefinite benching of the Live! frontman and easing the company’s concerns about further MAGA backlash. “It’s an ongoing discussion, with a lot of distrust on one side,” an insider told Deadline of the talks. “There’s no light at the end of the tunnel — yet,” she added, with a weary tone.
As everyone and their dog now knows, as Kimmel was preparing to film his show late Wednesday afternoon, the ABC parent company pulled the plug with a call from Disney Entertainment boss Dana Walden. Soon afterwards, mere minutes after Nexstar said it would not show Live! on the 32 ABC affiliates it owns because of his remarks about Kirk’s death, Disney put out a curt statement of Jimmy Kimmel Live! will be preempted indefinitely.”
WGA members at Protest ABC For Comedy, Criticism, and 1st Amendment (Organized by Burbank Against ICE) at the Disney Main Gate on September 18, 2025 in Burbank, California.
Michael Buckner
That call and taking Live! dark as Wednesday night’s audience were soon to enter the show’s Hollywood Blvd studio and guest like Wanda Sykes were on their way, has hit Tinseltown and an industry already bruised and beaten by Trump very hard. Voices on air and behind the camera spoke out in support of Kimmel as protesters Thursday took the streets outside Disney HQ and Live!‘s studio. With the exception of Kimmel and Live! staffer, the hardest hit seems to be a portion Disney studio and corporate management who feel that Walden and CEO Bob Iger bent too easily to MAGA pressure yet again.
“The reaction is like Don’t Say Gay on steroids,” one executive asserted.
Recalling the last major employee dissent episode at Disney, the DSG reference is obviously to former CEO Bob Chapek’s face plant of an initial response, or lack thereof, to Florida’s 2022 Parental Rights in Education Act law.
Chapek first said he didn’t want to say anything about the measure restricting discussion about sexual orientation and gender identity among kindergarten to 3rd Grade in the Sunshine State’s public schools. Then, as staffers walked out and took to internal communication to express outrage and betrayal, tried unsuccessfully to walk back his first stance.
Over Chapek’s short lived tenure at the Disney top job, the leadership fiasco of his Don’t Say Gay response is seen as the beginning of the end in the eyes of many.
As talent like Damon Lindelof insist they will not work with Disney until Kimmel is back and She-Hulk star Tatiana Maslany canceling her Disney+ subscription of the host’s suspension, the halls at Burbank, on the sixth floor and more, are full of whispers of dismay.
“This is not how we thought Bob would handle this, senior people told him this is not what we should be doing,” a Disney exec said.
Looking at the timeline, this all started to go south after FCC Chair Brendon Carr came out swinging over Kimmel’s September 15 remarks with talk of investigations and more. Noting the origin of the issue and the failure to resolve it amicably, the exec and other sources pointed to the resulting long meetings held on Wednesday about what Kimmel had said and wanted to say on that night’s show.
“It’s such a betrayal,” the exec lamented.
At the same time, unlike the DSG reaction three years ago, employees are for the most part keeping their feeling and POV off internal Slack and other communications. Fear of reprisals being the predominant clapback, I’m told
Still, according to another well-placed source, while some senior staff are expressing disappointment in how it all went down with Kimmel, “it is in no way widespread.”
Disney had no comment when contacted by Deadline about both the talks and the internal reaction to Kimmel’s suspension. Reps for Kimmel did not response to Deadline’s request for comment.
Talks on a possible Kimmel return to air are set to pick up Friday.
