Eisner addressed his reason for speaking out after Jimmy Kimmel’s late-night talk show was suspended.

Ex-Disney head Michael Eisner slams networks for paying Trump money in settlements over Kimmel: ‘That was bad’

Eisner addressed his reason for speaking out after Jimmy Kimmel's late-night talk show was suspended.

By Raechal Shewfelt

Raechal Shewfelt

Raechal Shewfelt is a writer at **. She has been working at EW since 2024. Her work has previously appeared on Yahoo and in American *Journalism Review* and *The Shreveport Times*.

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February 14, 2026 2:30 p.m. ET

President Donald Trump; Michael Eisner. Credit:

Dimitrios Kambouris/Getty; Jim Spellman/WireImage

Former Disney CEO Michael Eisner bid the company farewell long before *Jimmy Kimmel Live* was abruptly and briefly yanked off the air in September, but he's now explaining why he couldn't stay silent on the issue.

"I just was finally fed up with universities, law firms," Eisner, who was Disney's leader from 1985 to 2005, said on a new episode of *In Depth With Graham Bensinger*. "I left law firms that had made deals with the administration. I thought that was bad. I didn't think I had any voice anymore really, so it didn't matter what I did."

Still, he said, his wife and others urged him to skip commenting on the situation or to at least be cautious.

Kimmel's late-night show was suspended indefinitely by ABC, whose parent company is Disney, after he made remarks about the shooting death of conservative activist and Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk on Sept. 10.

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Kimmel had said, "We had 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 with everything they can to score political points from it."

Brendan Carr, President Donald Trump's appointed FCC chair, suggested affiliate groups push back against ABC and Disney.

*Jimmy Kimmel Live* was off the air for six days, before resuming in its usual place within ABC's schedule.

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In the meantime, Eisner had weighed in on the matter.**

"Where has all the leadership gone?" Eisner posted on Sept. 19. "If not for university presidents, law firm managing partners, and corporate chief executives standing up against bullies, who then will step up for the first amendment? The 'suspending indefinitely' of Jimmy Kimmel immediately after the Chairman of the FCC's aggressive yet hollow threatening of the Disney Company is yet another example of out-of-control intimidation. Maybe the Constitution should have said, 'Congress shall make no law abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press, except in one's political or financial self-interest.'"

He added, "By-the-way, for the record, this ex-CEO finds Jimmy Kimmel very talented and funny."

Jimmy Kimmel returns to 'Jimmy Kimmel Live' after his suspension in September 2025.

Disney/Randy Holmes

Speaking with Bensinger, Eisner explained that he got quite a response to his message.

"Three million people contacted me the next day. They just thought it was the greatest thing in the world. And somebody finally stood up and all these celebrities," he said. "I don't know if I broke the dam. I don't know whether I began the snowball. I don't know whether it would have happened anyway."

Eisner noted that it wasn't necessarily Disney's involvement that motivated him to speak up. He was also very much against Paramount Global, the parent company of CBS News, having agreed to pay $16 million to the Trump administration in July over the way a *60 Minutes* segment had been edited.

He found it "ridiculous."

Eisner was also unhappy with ABC News having settled with Trump for $15 million the year before, in response to a defamation suit from the former star of *The Apprentice*, which was a response to comments on *This Week*.

Eisner added that he likes to think he "wouldn't have settled."**

The broadcast episode of *In Depth With Graham Bensinge*r debuts in syndication across the U.S. this weekend.

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