Adam Carolla Drops Bombshell Reaction to Jimmy Kimmel Suspension
Adam Carolla weighs in on Jimmy Kimmel’s suspension over comments about Charlie Kirk — and his take might surprise fans. The former The Man Show co-host breaks down where he stands on his longtime friend’s latest controversy.
Late-night meets the culture war, again. ABC has put Jimmy Kimmel Live on ice after Kimmel riffed on Charlie Kirk’s death, and now Adam Carolla — yes, that Adam Carolla — is publicly defending his old co-host while still saying Jimmy got a key detail wrong. It’s a weird combo, but that’s where we are.
Carolla’s take: defending the friend, critiquing the moment
Carolla, who hosted The Man Show with Kimmel from 1999 to 2004 and now runs The Adam Carolla Show (he leans mostly right these days), weighed in on his podcast this week (a clip hit social on Sept. 18, 2025). He called Kimmel’s comment inaccurate, but not some personal attack on Kirk. In Carolla’s words, both sides love to misread each other. His read: Kimmel was trying to tie the moment to Trump and messed up a fact in the process.
Carolla also went out of his way to vouch for Kimmel as a person — generous, decent, still a friend despite political differences. He said people who only know 'TV Jimmy' see a caricature, name-checking Bill O’Reilly, Dave Rubin, and Dennis Prager as folks who’ve asked him 'what’s up with your buddy Jimmy?' He basically shrugs that off: they argue about politics the same way they argue about pizza toppings, and they still talk.
What triggered the shutdown
On Wednesday night, ABC halted production on Jimmy Kimmel Live after the FCC openly threatened to take action against the network and its license over Kimmel’s comments about Charlie Kirk’s death. For anyone keeping score, the FCC deals with broadcast licenses for stations, which is a big stick — the point is, the threat was serious.
During what is, for now, his last episode before the pause, Kimmel talked about the suspected politics of the person who killed Kirk and the MAGA response to the news. He put it like this:
'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.'
Where it stands now
- ABC has placed Jimmy Kimmel Live on an indefinite pause.
- Sinclair Broadcasting — which owns ABC affiliate stations alongside Nexstar — says that instead of Kimmel’s upcoming Friday show, ABC will air a special memorial service for Kirk that other affiliates are free to carry. Inside baseball alert: that’s an affiliate group pushing alternative programming while the network show is benched.
- Sinclair is also demanding that Kimmel apologize and make a 'meaningful personal donation' to Kirk’s family and to Turning Point USA.
- The Adam Carolla Show account posted a clip of Carolla reacting on Sept. 18, 2025.
So yes, Carolla is simultaneously calling Kimmel’s take wrong and standing up for him as a human being — which, given their history, is probably the least surprising part of this whole thing.