Jimmy Kimmel was not “fired,” but his late‑night show on ABC was taken off the air and suspended indefinitely in September 2025 after a controversial monologue about the reaction to the shooting of conservative activist Charlie Kirk.

Quick Scoop: What Actually Happened

  • Jimmy Kimmel delivered a monologue after the murder of Charlie Kirk.
  • His main target wasn’t Kirk himself, but Trump, MAGA allies, and what he described as their reaction to the killing.
  • ABC and its parent company Disney then decided to pull Jimmy Kimmel Live! from the air indefinitely, citing “poorly timed” and “insensitive” remarks during a tense national moment.
  • The move followed intense backlash from right‑wing figures and a very public threat from FCC chair Brendan Carr toward ABC and Disney over Kimmel’s comments.
  • Donald Trump publicly claimed Kimmel was “fired for bad ratings” and for “lack of talent,” though reports at the time said he was suspended, not formally terminated.

What Did Jimmy Kimmel Actually Say?

ABC and news outlets did not publish a full uncensored transcript of Kimmel’s monologue, but key points of what he said were widely reported:

  • He criticized how some on the right responded to Kirk’s assassination, saying they immediately tried to spin the alleged shooter as “anything but one of their own.”
  • He attacked what he called the “MAGA Gang” for finger‑pointing and political opportunism in the wake of the killing.
  • In one particularly cited line, he compared the way Charlie Kirk’s friend mourned him to a child grieving a pet goldfish, calling it immature and performative rather than dignified.

Those remarks, especially the “pet goldfish” comparison, were described by critics as “offensive,” “insensitive,” and “truly sick,” and became the focus of the outrage that led to the suspension.

Was He Actually Fired?

This is where the wording in forums and headlines gets confusing.

  • ABC officially announced that Jimmy Kimmel Live! was being taken off the air indefinitely, not that Kimmel’s employment was formally terminated.
  • A source quoted by CNBC said Kimmel had not been fired at that point, and that executives planned to discuss how he would address the controversy if and when he returned.
  • However, political allies of Trump and some commentators repeatedly used the language of “fired” and “canceled,” and the White House Rapid Response account celebrated “the decision to fire Jimmy Kimmel and cancel his show.”

So, in public conversation (and on forums), people often boil it down to “what did he say to get him fired,” even though technically the action was an indefinite suspension and pulling the show off the air.

Why His Comments Blew Up So Much

Several overlapping factors made this a huge trending topic rather than just another late‑night controversy:

  1. The timing and subject
    • The monologue came just after the assassination of a high‑profile conservative activist, when emotions and political tensions were already sky‑high.
 * Anything that could be framed as mocking the grieving or politicizing the death drew extra scrutiny.
  1. Government pressure and the FCC
    • FCC chair Brendan Carr publicly condemned Kimmel’s remarks as “reprehensible” and “truly sick” and threatened to go after ABC’s broadcast licenses if the company didn’t “take action” over Kimmel.
 * Broadcasters like Nexstar and Sinclair then announced they would stop airing Kimmel’s show, calling his comments “offensive and insensitive.”
  1. Trump’s direct involvement
    • Trump praised ABC affiliates and broadcasters that dropped Kimmel, claimed Kimmel was fired for bad ratings, and framed it as a win against a comedian who mocked him.
 * Kimmel later suggested the move was politically motivated and linked to Trump’s influence and the need for companies like Nexstar to get favorable regulatory decisions.
  1. Free‑speech and media‑pressure debate
    • Critics on the left and in press‑freedom circles argued this looked less like a pure business decision and more like a case of a government‑aligned regulator and political pressure effectively pushing a comedian off the air for protected speech.
 * Supporters of the suspension argued that networks and affiliates have the right to drop a show if they think a host’s comments are beyond the pale.

Forums and “What Did He Say…?” Threads

On forums and discussion boards, the question “what did Jimmy Kimmel say to get him fired?” usually gets answered in a few shorthand ways:

  • “He mocked the way Charlie Kirk’s ‘friend’ mourned him and compared it to a kid losing a pet goldfish.”
  • “He blamed MAGA and said they were trying to pretend the shooter wasn’t one of their own.”
  • “He went after Trump and MAGA right after a politically charged assassination, and the FCC chair basically threatened ABC until they pulled him.”

Most of these summaries aren’t word‑for‑word quotes; they’re paraphrases of the lines that blew up the most in coverage and political commentary.

Multi‑View: Was This Fair?

Different camps frame what happened very differently:

  • Critics of Kimmel
    • Say he crossed a line by sounding like he was mocking grief over a murder.
* Argue a major network host should expect consequences for comments seen as cruel or misleading in a time of national tension.
  • Supporters of Kimmel
    • Say he was criticizing political spin and hypocrisy, not the victim himself.
* See the suspension as the result of coordinated political and regulatory pressure, not just “bad taste,” and a worrying precedent for political speech on TV.
  • Network/business perspective
    • Disney and ABC framed the move as an attempt to lower tensions and protect employees and advertisers after death threats and doxxing connected to the backlash.
* Affiliate groups like Nexstar were also in the middle of big merger and license decisions, so they were especially sensitive to the FCC and political blowback.

So, Answering the Core Question

If you’re just looking for a compact, forum‑style answer to:

“What did Jimmy Kimmel say to get him fired?”

A concise summary that reflects what’s publicly reported would be:

  • He did a monologue after Charlie Kirk’s assassination that harshly attacked Trump, MAGA supporters, and how they reacted to the killing, accusing them of trying to portray the alleged shooter as “anything but one of their own.”
  • In that monologue he also used a line likening a public expression of grief over Kirk to a child mourning a pet goldfish, which many conservatives and regulators blasted as cruel and “reprehensible.”
  • The combination of that speech, political outrage, and open threats from the FCC chair led ABC and Disney to suspend Jimmy Kimmel Live! indefinitely and pull it from the air, even as Trump claimed he’d effectively been “fired.”

Bottom note: Information gathered from public forums or data available on the internet and portrayed here.