Jay Leno is standing with Jimmy Kimmel despite their rocky past.
While speaking to reporters outside Chris Wallace‘s Hollywood Walk of Fame ceremony on Thursday, September 18, Leno, 75, reacted to ABC pulling Jimmy Kimmel Live! off the air earlier this week.
“I’m on Jimmy Kimmel’s side on that one,” the former Tonight Show host declared, adding that he could imagine a suspension like this happening during his time as a late night TV host. (Leno helmed The Tonight Show from 1992 to 2009 and from 2010 to 2014.)
“These kinds of things happen all the time,” he said.
Leno told reporters on Thursday that Kimmel’s suspension speaks to his ability to tell the truth: “You don’t get canceled saying popular things. Usually it’s the truth that winds up getting [you] canceled, so we’ll see what happens.”
Leno also said that anyone who disagrees with comedians on late night TV doesn’t need to watch them.
“It’s a comedian talking. If you don’t like it, don’t watch it,” he continued. “That’s the market. Let the people decide. If people like a show, it stays on the air. I mean, that’s as simple as that.”
Leno added, “I enjoy Jimmy. I like all the guys. I think they’re really talented. I like jokes. That’s why I watch them. I think Jimmy will land on his feet. He’s a talented guy. He’s funny. And let’s see what happens. Maybe he might be on [TV again] in just a couple of weeks again. So, we’ll see.”
Leno concluded by saying that he’s “for free speech.”
“Patrick Henry said it best: ‘Give me liberty or give me death.’ That was the first go-around with this argument. It’s gone on for 200 years, and in a free society, it’ll go on for another 200,” he said. “It’ll be alright. Don’t worry about it.”
Jay Leno, Jimmy Kimmel Justin Lubin/NBCU Photo Bank
A spokesperson for ABC confirmed the suspension of Kimmel’s talk show on Wednesday, September 17, telling Us Weekly in a statement, “Jimmy Kimmel Live! will be pre-empted indefinitely.”
The move came after Kimmel, 57, received backlash for his monologue during the Monday, September 15, episode, in which he spoke about Tyler Robinson, who was accused of fatally shooting conservative commentator Charlie Kirk during an event at Utah Valley University on September 10.
“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,” Kimmel said. “In between the finger-pointing, there was grieving.”
Kimmel then poked fun at President Donald Trump’s response to a reporter who asked how he was coping with Kirk’s death. (Trump, 79, said, “I think very good,” and then transitioned to discussing the White House ballroom’s remodel.)
“He’s at the fourth stage of grief: construction,” Kimmel joked. “This is not how an adult grieves the murder of someone he called a friend. This is how a 4-year-old mourns a goldfish, OK?”
Conan O’Brien threw his support behind Jimmy Kimmel as drama surrounding the latter’s late night show continues to unfold. “The suspension of @jimmykimmel and the promise to silence other Late Night hosts for criticizing the administration should disturb everyone on the Right, Left, and Center,” O’Brien, who’s hosted multiple late night shows throughout his career, […]
Nexstar Media, which owns multiple TV stations, told Variety in a statement that it “strongly objects to recent comments made by Mr. Kimmel concerning the killing of Charlie Kirk” and would be replacing Kimmel’s talk show with alternative programming “for the foreseeable future.”
Leno’s defense of Kimmel comes more than a decade after the pair experienced a tense moment on The Tonight Show. At the time, Kimmel mocked Leno for returning to the talk show after he briefly handed it over to Conan O’Brien.
When Leno asked Kimmel about the greatest prank Kimmel had ever pulled, Kimmel joked, “I told a guy that five years from now, I’m going to give you my show, and then when the five years came, I gave it to him, and then I took it back almost instantly.”
They resolved their issues in 2017 when Leno reached out to Kimmel after his son experienced a medical issue. Leno reflected on Kimmel’s initial dig at him during a May appearance on the “In Depth With Graham Bensinger” podcast.
“When Kimmel came on my show and humiliated me on my own show, I let it happen. I didn’t edit it,” Leno said. “It was my mistake, I trusted somebody. I went, ‘Ah, I made a mistake. OK, I should pay the price.’ And it’s fine, it’s fine. I mean, we could have edited it out of the show.”
