More than 400 Hollywood stars have signed an open letter by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) condemning Disney’s indefinite suspension of Jimmy Kimmel Live! under pressure from the Trump administration.
The letter, released five days after Disney “pre-empted” the late-night talkshow over host Jimmy Kimmel’s comments on the death of slain rightwing activist Charlie Kirk, calls on all Americans to defend their right to speak freely. It states that efforts to pressure artists, journalists and others with retaliation for their speech “strike at the heart of what it means to live in a free country”.
Signatories of the letter include Jennifer Aniston, Meryl Streep, Tom Hanks, Robert De Niro, Jason Bateman, Jane Fonda, Selena Gomez, Olivia Rodrigo, Natalie Portman, Maya Rudolph, Martin Short, Joaquin Phoenix, Rooney Mara, Ben Stiller, Jamie Lee Curtis, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Michael Keaton, Regina King, Diego Luna and Lin-Manuel Miranda.
“Last week, Jimmy Kimmel was taken off the air after the government threatened a private company with retaliation, marking a dark moment for freedom of speech in our nation,” the letter reads. “In an attempt to silence its critics, our government has resorted to threatening the livelihoods of journalists, talk show hosts, artists, creatives, and entertainers across the board. This runs counter to the values our nation was built upon, and our constitution guarantees.”
Disney’s CEO, Bob Iger, and Disney Entertainment co-chair Dana Walden reportedly made the decision to pull Kimmel from the air over a comment in his Monday night monologue after the shooting of Kirk on 10 September. “The Maga gang [is] desperately trying to characterize this kid who murdered Charlie Kirk as anything other than one of them, and doing everything they can to score political points from it,” he said. It was not clear if Kimmel was suggesting that Kirk’s suspected killer, Tyler Robinson, was a literal supporter of Maga, or that the killing was part of a broader shift toward violence in American politics, particularly on the right.
Regardless, the comment deeply angered Trump supporters, including Brendan Carr, the head of the US Federal Communications Commission (FCC), who said Kimmel had made a “concerted effort to try to lie to the American people”. Carr threatened to pull affiliate broadcast licenses if Disney did not “take action” against the host.
That threat, followed by affiliate owners Nexstar and Sinclair pre-empting the show (and in the case of Nexstar, demanding that Kimmel apologize on air and donate to Kirk’s rightwing activist group Turning Point USA), led to Disney’s suspension. The decision has prompted widespread outcry over censorship – even from fellow Republicans such as Ted Cruz – as well as calls to boycott Disney.
After the suspension sparked a national debate on free speech and the muzzling tactics of the Trump administration – and spurred calls to boycott Disney as well as protests outside the company’s headquarters in Burbank, California – Disney announced on Monday that Jimmy Kimmel Live! would return to broadcast this Tuesday, saying that “days of thoughtful conversations” with Kimmel had led to the decision.
“We now find ourselves in a modern McCarthy era, facing exactly the type of heavy-handed government censorship our constitution rightfully forbids,” Anthony D Romero, the executive director of the ACLU, told the Hollywood Reporter. “The silencing of Jimmy Kimmel and jawboning of media outlets through lawsuits and threats to their licenses evoke dark memories of the 1950s. We must remember, however, that Senator McCarthy was ultimately disgraced and neutralized once Americans mobilized and stood up to him. We must do the same today because together, our voices are louder and together, we will fight to be heard.”
“Regardless of our political affiliation, or whether we engage in politics or not, we all love our country,” the letter reads. “We also share the belief that our voices should never be silenced by those in power – because if it happens to one of us, it happens to all of us.”
Since the Kimmel suspension, Carr has also threatened that he might be “looking into” The View, another ABC talkshow. On Monday, the show’s co-host Whoopi Goldberg addressed the comments: “Did y’all really think we weren’t going to talk about Jimmy Kimmel? I mean, have you watched the show over the last 29 seasons? No one silences us,” she said.
“Someone can say something they shouldn’t and get taken off the air,” she added. “But the government cannot apply pressure to force someone to be silenced.”
