Expensive Hollywood Free Speech Activists,
The place had been you? No, actually, the place have you ever been?
ABC’s suspension of “Jimmy Kimmel Reside!” has triggered a crush of celebrities bemoaning an assault on speech.
That’s only a pattern of the collective outrage. Right now, 400 celebrities signed an ACLU pledge supporting Kimmel.
400 celebrities — from Tom Hanks to Jennifer Aniston, Meryl Streep, Jamie Lee Curtis, Jason Bateman and extra — have teamed up with the ACLU to slam Jimmy Kimmel’s suspension.
“We now discover ourselves in a contemporary McCarthy period, going through precisely the kind of heavy-handed authorities… pic.twitter.com/oZMe1TBjfO
— Selection (@Selection) September 22, 2025
First, some information.
Kimmel isn’t gone from the late-night scene. ABC is making an attempt to barter his return, however revealed accounts insist he refuses to apologize for a large, fats, merciless lie he instructed to smite MAGA Nation. And that’s after he as soon as boasted he does all he can to get the information proper on his present and fortunately apologizes when he doesn’t.
The lie in query, which blamed MAGA for Charlie Kirk’s loss of life, got here throughout a nationwide tragedy.
The late-night host’s scores haven’t been adequate to guard him from controversy, at the very least not anymore.
Jimmy Kimmel did to ABCs scores what the Liberal Get together has finished to Canada’s financial system.
Relentless decline. For a decade.
His snarky tackle Charlie Kirk’s homicide was the ultimate straw for ABC.
Kimmel wasn’t paid for ‘free speech’ he was paid to be humorous.
Wasn’t humorous,… https://t.co/CmsUZ2LnBp pic.twitter.com/NjBMsvZMX1
— David Knight Legg (@KnightLegg) September 21, 2025
The present could also be shedding cash, if comparisons to CBS’s “The Late Present” could be made, though this isn’t clear. It’s true that late-night TV’s income stream has collapsed in recent times, and comparable reveals have tightened their belts by decreasing the variety of episodes per week (“The Tonight Present”) and firing the home band (“Late Evening with Seth Meyers”).
FCC Chairman Brendan Carr did share views on “The Benny Present” final week that may very well be chilling for the free speech motion, however there’s no proof that the associates who balked at airing Kimmel’s present – the spark that set this imbroglio in movement – had been coerced by Carr’s statements.
And President Donald Trump did what he typically does … counsel the federal government will lean on free speech, despite the fact that these broadsides have but to quantity to precise motion. Thank goodness.
That’s the place we stand.
Now, celebrities who nonetheless insist it’s a free speech difficulty can have their say, in fact. It’s necessary to face tall when speech is threatened in any method.
However, to repeat ourselves, the place have they been? Or, to cite a sure film cop, welcome to the social gathering, pal!
Free speech has been below serial assault for the previous decade.
- Cancel Tradition threatened comedians for sharing the “mistaken” jokes or simply resurfacing decade-old materials. Simply ask Kevin Hart
- Sensitivity readers have erased passages from works by Ian Fleming, Roald Dahl and Agatha Christie. Stated readers seemingly erased way more throughout the modifying strategy of newer works. We could by no means know the harm finished to the humanities
- The Twitter Information revealed direct authorities stress to censor Individuals throughout the digital panorama
- The U.S. authorities pressured Fb to ban or shadow ban information about Hunter Biden’s laptop computer throughout the ultimate weeks of the 2020 presidential election
- The Biden administration tried to create a brand new physique to eradicate so-called “misinformation,” however fortunately, it wasn’t profitable
- A rodeo clown was drummed out of the enterprise for mocking then-President Barack Obama
- The Left tried to cancel Joe Rogan for sharing alternate opinions on COVID-19, a few of which proved one hundred pc correct
- Trans activists, and their media allies, tried to cancel Dave Chappelle for telling trans-adjacent jokes on his Netflix particular, “The Nearer”
- ABC fired Roseanne Barr for one ugly, racially-charged Tweet for which she swiftly apologized, in contrast to a sure late-night TV host
- European international locations, notably England, have clamped down arduous on social media-related speech
- Disney fired Gina Carano for sharing a Nazi analogy that pleaded for empathy, ignoring nastier posts shared by her “Mandalorian” co-star, Pedro Pascal
- The Hollywood Blacklist 2.0 continued apace
- Conservative audio system confronted relentless assaults on faculty campuses, typically requiring sizable sums for safety personnel. Ben Shapiro lately shared his safety group pressed him to put on bulletproof vests throughout choose appearances. Riley Gaines hid for hours whereas thugs raged outdoors
- Jewish artists confronted cancellation threats, and worse, for merely showing on stage and/or performing
- Artists self-censored for worry {of professional} reprisals. Some even memory-holed their very own work
- Charlie Kirk, one of the lively proponents of speech and free debate, was gunned down by a Leftist thug and the celebs ignored the subject on the Emmys
- Oh, and Hollywood celebrities cheered when social media giants kicked President Donald Trump off their networks following the Jan. 6 riot
This can be a partial checklist. A lot of the above gadgets instantly impacted the leisure trade. And, with some notable exceptions – Rob Schneider, Joe Rogan, John Cleese rush to thoughts – Hollywood didn’t say “boo.”
Kimmel was considered one of many to face down by way of all of it.
Why?
The reply is straightforward and threefold. Celebrities had been afraid that in the event that they spoke up, they is perhaps subsequent. They didn’t understand that standing up, en masse, would shield them whereas sending a robust message to the woke scolds.
They selected in any other case.
Some, as a result of their siloed newsfeed, weren’t conscious of a few of these horrifying instances.
Extra importantly, celebrities weren’t serious about defending speech when Trump wasn’t concerned within the matter. President Trump was out of workplace for the final 4 years, so that they couldn’t use speech-related battles to assault him.
As soon as they noticed it as a option to assault Orange Man Dangerous, they pounced and seized on the matter.
It’s that straightforward.
Now, on the very least, these sudden free speech warriors ought to cop to their nuclear-grade double requirements and let’s struggle free of charge speech for everybody.
Editor’s Word: It’s a brutal time to be an unbiased journalist, nevertheless it’s by no means been extra obligatory given the sorry state of the company press. For those who’re having fun with Hollywood in Toto, I hope you’ll think about leaving a coin (or two) in our Tip Jar.