Controversial Jimmy Kimmel Moments We Can't Forget About

Jimmy Kimmel's infamous late-night show suspension was a first for "Jimmy Kimmel Live!" Yet, this wasn't the first time the famed late night host found himself in the midst of controversy. The comedian has been a household name for decades, with his talk show first premiering on ABC back in 2003. And well before he made one joke that got his show pulled from the airwaves, he got himself into trouble with his comedy more than a few times.

The late-night star was once prepared to ditch the United States because of Donald Trump's presidency, and when the Trump administration had a hand in getting him briefly axed from the world of late-night TV, he probably wished he had left in the first place. But, before Kimmel's comedy angered the folks running the country, it had him putting his foot in his mouth for a whole plethora of different reasons. From offensive jokes from early in his career getting unearthed to one rude moment at the Emmy Awards, Kimmel's long career has caused a long string of controversies.

After media personality Charlie Kirk's fatal incident on September 10, 2025, Jimmy Kimmel made a joke on "Jimmy Kimmel Live!" that would go down in history. During his monologue on the September 15 episode, the host said, "We hit some new lows over the weekend with the MAGA gang 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," per People, adding, "In between the finger-pointing, there was grieving. On Friday, the White House flew the flags at half staff, which got some criticism, but on a human level, you can see how hard the president is taking this." He then cut to a clip of Donald Trump replying to a question about his reaction to Kirk's death by bragging about the ballroom he was having built at the White House. "... he's at the fourth stage of grief: construction," Kimmel joked.

On September 18, 2025, Federal Communications Commission Chairman Brendan Carr announced that networks that air statements similar to Kimmel's joke could face repercussions. ABC indefinitely suspended "Jimmy Kimmel Live!" mere hours after the threat was made. The unprecedented move shook Hollywood and netizens, alike, many of whom worried about the state of the First Amendment. Widespread boycotts caused the valuation of ABC's parent company Disney to fall by nearly $6.5 billion. Days later, ABC announced on September 22 that the show would return the following night.

Early in his career as a comedian, Jimmy Kimmel was known for doing impressions. In 2020, some of these impressions and how he chose to do them came back to haunt him, as a clip of him in blackface doing a racist impression made the rounds online. In response to the backlash, Kimmel issued an apology. In it, he explained that the blackface came into play when he moved from doing impressions of basketball star Karl Malone on a radio show in the '90s to being on Comedy Central's "The Man Show." "We hired make-up artists to make me look as much like Karl Malone as possible," he explained, adding, "I never considered that this might be seen as anything other than an imitation of a fellow human being, one that had no more to do with Karl's skin color than it did his bulging muscles and bald head," per BBC.

Ultimately, though, according to Kimmel, hindsight opened his eyes to the harm his actions caused. "Looking back, many of these sketches are embarrassing, and it is frustrating that these thoughtless moments have become a weapon used by some to diminish my criticisms of social and other injustices," he explained, and he formally apologized to those who were hurt or taken aback by the harmful clips.

Just as Jimmy Kimmel was forced to face his racist jokes from the past in 2020, he was also met with criticism for a past remark he had made about fellow star Megan Fox. In 2009, Fox appeared on "Jimmy Kimmel Live!" and talked to the titular host about auditioning with director Michael Bay to be an extra in "Bad Boys II" when she had just turned 15 years old. Fox recalled wearing a bikini and high heels to film a scene in a nightclub. "He approved it, and they said... Michael, she's 15, so you can't sit her at the bar and she can't have a drink in her hand, so his solution to that problem was to then have me dancing underneath a waterfall getting soaking wet," she explained, per Newsweek. She noted, "At 15, I was in 10th grade. So that's sort of a microcosm of how Bay's mind works." Kimmel replied, "Yeah well, that's really a microcosm of how all of our minds work."

A clip of the interaction made the rounds online just as Kimmel was coming under fire for his past racist comedy. It doesn't seem, however, that Kimmel made any public acknowledgement of his inappropriate remarks about an underage Fox.

In addition to his work on his late-night talk show, there are plenty of folks who know Jimmy Kimmel as an award show host. He hosted the Academy Awards four times and the Emmy Awards three times. Considering how many times he has been invited back, it is clear that Kimmel is a top pick for these coveted gigs. That doesn't mean, however, that it has always been smooth sailing with Kimmel at the mic on a big awards night. After a poorly received joke at the 74th Emmy Awards back in 2022, Kimmel apologized to "Abbott Elementary" creator and star Quinta Brunson for what he ultimately called a "dumb comedy bit," per ABC.

When it came time to announce the winner of the outstanding writing in a comedy award alongside comedian Will Arnett, Kimmel chose to lie down on the ground as if he had drunkenly passed out. He continued the gag for the entirety of Brunson's acceptance speech, lying very close to the microphone and even requiring her to step over his body before accepting her award. After folks online expressed anger that Kimmel stole attention from Brunson's acceptance speech, he apologized to the star when she appeared on his show. While Brunson called Kimmel's apology "very kind," she noted that she was "wrapped up in the moment" when she got her award, which kept her mostly distracted from the host's uncomfortable proximity to her during her speech.