ABC has dismissed claims that Jimmy Kimmel’s late-night show is ending next year.
Just as the comedian was returning from summer break on Tuesday, Page Six reported that his upcoming season will be his last.
“His contract is not getting extended,” a source familiar with the matter told the entertainment publication.
Jimmy Kimmel Live!, which has been on air for nearly 24 years, will remain in the ABC lineup at least until May 2027 after the host signed a one-year deal, as reported by multiple outlets last December.
But an ABC spokesperson said in a statement shared with The Independent that Page Six’s reporting that the show will be canceled next year is “inaccurate” and that “any reports about the future of the show at this point are purely speculative.”
open image in galleryKimmel has been a longtime critic of Donald Trump, but his jokes targeting the president’s MAGA base in the past year or so have grown increasingly controversial.
His show was briefly suspended in September following comments he made on air about the fatal shooting of conservative activist Charlie Kirk. When he returned about a week later, Kimmel shared his regrets for his remarks, choking up as he said, “It was never my intention to make light of the murder of a young man.”
Trump, then 79, called for Kimmel to be fired in April after the late-night host joked on his show during a parody of the upcoming White House Correspondents’ Dinner about First Lady Melania Trump, then 55.
“Mrs. Trump, you have a glow like an expectant widow,” Kimmel said at the time.
The real event abruptly ended after a gunman tried to storm into the ballroom of The Washington Hilton, where Trump, Melania, several members of his administration and D.C. journalists were attending the gala.
“I appreciate that so many people are incensed by Kimmel’s despicable call to violence, and normally would not be responsive to anything that he said but, this is something far beyond the pale,” Trump wrote on Truth Social at the time.
Kimmel said the joke was “about their age difference “ and “it was not by any stretch of the definition a call to assassination.”
open image in galleryPage Six’s sources say that the move to cancel Kimmel’s show would be unlikely to be related to Kimmel’s adversarial relationship with the Trump administration.
“It wouldn’t have anything to do with Trump,” one source said.
ABC is also in a legal battle with Trump’s Federal Communications Commission.
The network and its parent company Disney filed a First Amendment lawsuit against the FCC after the agency demanded an early review of the broadcast licenses of eight ABC-owned stations. The FCC has asked the court to toss out the lawsuit.