Howard Stern announced on Monday’s episode of his SiriusXM radio show that he is canceling his Disney+ subscription after ABC suspended “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” Disney is the network’s parent company. Stern joins a growing list of celebrities who have made their Disney+ cancellations public in the days since Kimmel was taken off air, from Cynthia Nixon to Noah Centineo.
“As you know, ABC threw Jimmy [Kimmel] off the air,” Stern said. “I don’t know what their plan is, but it looks like they might be firing him. And then I read sometimes that they’re not gonna fire him. I don’t know. I have spoken to Jimmy. I didn’t ask him these questions, I just asked him how he was doing personally. I just know when the government begins to interfere, when the government says, ‘I’m not pleased with you, so we’re gonna orchestrate a way to silence you,’ it’s the wrong direction for our country.”
“I should know. I’ve been involved in something like this, and now ABC is put in the same position and it’s unfortunate that ABC even has to be in this position,” Stern continued. “They shouldn’t have to be in this position. I feel for them too, in this. But someone’s gotta step up and fucking say, ‘Hey, enough, we’re not gonna bow.’ Now it might sound stupid, but the thing I did this morning, I’m canceling my Disney+. I’m trying to say with the pocketbook that I do not support what they’re doing with Jimmy.”
Stern is one of several high-profile entertainments hosts who have condemned ABC and Disney for yanking Kimmel off the air. Stephen Colbert called the decision “blatant censorship” to appease Donald Trump, while Jimmy Fallon expressed his desire for Kimmel to return to air and vowed never to stop making Trump jokes even if there are fears it will get “The Tonight Show” censored.
Similar to Stern, John Oliver also said that Disney should not have bowed down to the FCC or the Trump administration. Oliver added: “If we’ve learned nothing else from this administration’s second term so far, and I don’t think we have, is that giving the bully your lunch money doesn’t make him go away. It just makes him come back hungrier each time… Look, at some point you’re going to have to draw a line. So I’d argue, why not draw it right here? And when they come to you with stupid ridiculous demands, picking fights that you know you could win in court instead of rolling over, why not stand up and use four key words they don’t tend to teach you in business school. Not ‘OK, you’re the boss.’ Not ‘Whatever you say goes.’ But instead, the only phrase that can genuinely make a weak bully go away. And that is, ‘Fuck you, make me.’”
Watch Stern announce he is canceling his Disney+ subscription in the video below.
