- Jimmy Kimmel's suspension ended with a comeback episode on Tuesday that drew 6.26 million viewers.
- Disney said it was Kimmel's highest-rated broadcast in a decade despite affiliate boycotts.
- History shows late-night backlashes can make or break a host, from Bill Maher to Stephen Colbert.
Jimmy Kimmel's return to late-night TV after his suspension over remarks about conservative activist Charlie Kirk was nothing short of a spectacle.
Disney said the comeback episode on Tuesday reached 6.26 million viewers, the show's biggest audience in a decade, despite not airing on nearly a quarter of ABC affiliates.
The opening monologue also drew more than 26 million views on YouTube and social media.
In Thursday's episode, Kimmel even said the suspension helped boost his ratings, making it the second-most-watched in the show's history.
But Kimmel's experience isn't unique.
Late-night history shows that flare-ups can either vault a host to new heights or cost them their show entirely.
Bill Maher (2001)
Bill Maher ignited outrage after calling US military actions in Afghanistan "cowardly" in the aftermath of 9/11.
He contrasted America's reliance on cruise missiles launched from afar with the hijackers' willingness to die, sparking widespread backlash.
The showdown prompted ABC to cancel his show "Politically Incorrect" in 2002 after sponsors pulled out.
But Maher turned the flash point into a career reset, launching "Real Time with Bill Maher" on HBO in 2003, which has now run for 22 years.
David Letterman (2009)
In 2009, Letterman joked that Sarah Palin's daughter had been "knocked up" by former professional baseball player Alex Rodriguez — a line widely interpreted as referencing her then-teenage daughter.
Palin, then Alaska's governor, blasted the joke as "sexually perverted comments," while her husband, Todd Palin, and the National Organization for Women also condemned it as "disgusting" and inappropriate.
The backlash sparked a political firestorm, but ratings for "The Late Show" jumped, even surpassing "The Tonight Show" for the first time in over three years as viewers tuned in to see Letterman's response.
Letterman later clarified that the jokes were meant to be about Palin's then-pregnant 18-year-old daughter, saying he "would never, never make jokes about raping or having sex of any description with a 14-year-old girl."
He ultimately apologized on air to the Palin family.
Conan O'Brien (2010)
Conan O'Brien took over NBC's "The Tonight Show" from Jay Leno in June 2009, after Leno had hosted it since 1992.
But when Leno's new primetime show didn't meet expectations, NBC tried to move him back to late night by pushing "The Tonight Show with Conan O'Brien" to just after midnight.
O'Brien refused, saying the change would "seriously damage what I consider the greatest franchise in the history of broadcasting."
The clash — dubbed the "late-night war" — ended with O'Brien leaving NBC in January 2010.
His final show drew 10.3 million viewers, nearly triple his average.
The drama helped him build a cult following that carried into his next chapter at TBS, a cable network owned by Warner Bros. Discovery, where he launched the late-night talk show "Conan" that ran from November 2010 to June 2021.
Jimmy Fallon (2016)
In September 2016, Fallon hosted Donald Trump on "The Tonight Show" and ended the interview by playfully mussing Trump's hair — the "hair tussle" seen around the world.
Critics said Fallon normalized Trump at a pivotal point in the presidential campaign.
The episode hit a 2.6 household rating across Nielsen's 56 metered markets — its best Thursday since former President Barack Obama's visit in June 2016.
But while the incident gave him a short-term ratings boost, it damaged his long-term reputation as a serious late-night host.
In the following months, Fallon defended himself to TMZ, saying, "Have you seen my show? I'm never too hard on anyone."
But he later expressed regret. In March 2017, he said he was "devastated" by the backlash and insisted, "I didn't do it to humanize him," adding, "I almost did it to minimize him."
Stephen Colbert (2017 and 2025)
In May 2017, Colbert made a crude joke about Trump and Putin referring to oral sex in his monologue.
The line triggered hundreds of FCC complaints and a wave of criticism, especially from conservatives who called it homophobic.
But the FCC ultimately ruled the joke did not violate broadcast decency standards and took no action against CBS.
Rather than derailing "The Late Show," the uproar pushed it past "The Tonight Show," with an average of 3.27 million viewers the following week — cementing Colbert's image as late night's anti-Trump force.
Fast forward to July of this year, Colbert lambasted a $16 million settlement between Paramount (CBS's parent) and Trump, which resolved the president's lawsuit claiming "60 Minutes" had deceptively edited a 2024 interview with then-presidential rival Kamala Harris that "tipped the scales in favor of the Democratic party."
On air, Colbert called the payout a "big fat bribe."
Days later, CBS announced that "The Late Show" would end in May 2026, calling the decision "purely financial," though critics pointed to the timing as suspicious.
Democratic lawmakers, including Senators Elizabeth Warren and Adam Schiff, questioned whether the cancellation was retaliatory.
