The cancellation of Jimmy Kimmel’s late-night show for a comment about the murder of ultra-conservative activist Charlie Kirk has sparked a wave of support, with prominent Hollywood figures joined by labor unions and prominent Democratic Party politicians.
Jean Smart, whose series ‘Hacks’ just won her seventh Emmy and who shared the screen with Kimmel on the series, said she was “appalled” by ABC’s decision to remove it from its schedule indefinitely.
“What Jimmy said was FREEDOM of speech, not hate speech. It seems people want to protect free speech only when it serves their purposes. (…) What is wrong with our country?” the performer stressed on Instagram.
Fellow actor Ben Stiller summed up his rejection in a terse phrase: “This is not right.”
Alison Brie, who rose to fame with the series ‘Mad Men’, said on Instagram that the decision made “is surreal and very scary”.
Among Kimmel’s colleagues in the late-night slot, Michael Kosta, host of The Daily Show, posted on his Instagram stories that “this is a serious moment in American history” that broadcasters “must fight back” in the face of.
Comedian Mike Birbiglia made an appeal to all fellow comedians: “I’ve spent a lot of time publicly and privately defending comedians I disagree with. If you’re a comedian and you don’t criticize the insanity of removing Kimmel, don’t even bother getting more offended by attacks on free speech,” he argued on Instagram.
The Hollywood actors’ union SAG-AFTRA stressed that society “depends on freedom of speech.”
“The suppression of free speech and retaliation for speaking out on matters of public concern goes against the fundamental rights we all rely on. The decision to suspend Jimmy Kimmel Live! is a type of repression and retaliation that endangers the freedoms of all,” he said in a statement on his website.
The Musicians Federation of the United States and Canada added that this is “state censorship” because the Federal Communications Commission did not like Kimmel’s statement.
Kirk was shot and killed Sept. 10 at an outdoor event at a Utah college. The defendant, Tyler Robinson, is a 22-year-old white male and Kimmel suggested in his speech that he was a Republican.
“The MAGA [Make America Great Again] gang is desperately trying to characterize this guy who murdered Charlie Kirk as something other than one of them and doing everything they can to get political mileage out of him,” Kimmel said Monday.
For the governor of California, Democrat Gavin Newsom, the cancellation is censoring the population “live”: “Buying and controlling media platforms. Firing talk show hosts. Canceling programs. These are not coincidences. It is coordinated and dangerous. The Republican Party does not believe in freedom of expression,” he said in X.
Chuck Schumer, leader of the Democratic minority in the U.S. Senate, considered that what happened should go to court: “The U.S. is destined to be a bastion of freedom of expression, and everyone, across the political spectrum, should raise their voices to stop what is happening to Jimmy Kimmel. It’s about protecting democracy,” he said on the same network.
Find out more at ‘QueOnnda.com’.
