Was Megyn Kelly dropped from "Today" show over blackface remarks? Podcaster says "F him & his self pity" to Jimmy Kimmel as his show returns

Journalist and political commentator Megyn Kelly recently criticized Jimmy Kimmel as he returned to air days after his late-night show was suspended following his comments about Charlie Kirk's alleged assassin, Tyler Robinson. On September 17, 2025, ABC indefinitely suspended Kimmel's eponymous show, Jimmy Kimmel Live!, after the late-night host faced backlash for criticizing MAGA for trying to falsely characterize Robinson's political stance to gain "political points."

On September 23, 2025, Kimmel's show returned to air, despite media conglomerate Sinclair refusing to telecast the show on its ABC affiliates. On September 24, Megyn Kelly took to her X account to share her thoughts about Kimmel's return to late-night TV, referencing her past controversy with NBC for her comments about blackface.

Megyn Kelly called out Kimmel for not supporting her when she was "cancelled" for talking about "blackface Halloween costumes" despite him having worn blackface in the past, writing:

"Remember when I was cancelled & held back tears on the air & Kimmel stood up for me saying “All she did was ask a Q about blackface Halloween costumes, whereas I, Jimmy, have actually worn blackface many times & still have a show! This is wrong!"

Megyn Kelly

@megynkelly

Remember when I was cancelled & held back tears on the air & Kimmel stood up for me saying “All she did was ask a Q about blackface Halloween costumes, whereas I, Jimmy, have actually worn blackface many times & still have a show! This is wrong!” Me neither. F him & his self pity

For context, Megyn Kelly's Today show on NBC, titled Megyn Kelly Today, was cancelled after the host defended people wearing blackface as a Halloween costume in October 2018. During a roundtable discussion about appropriate Halloween costumes, Kelly implied that wearing blackface was not racist, adding that people did it all the time when she was a kid.

“But what is racist? Because you do get in trouble if you are a white person who puts on blackface on Halloween, or a black person who puts on whiteface for Halloween. Back when I was a kid that was OK, as long as you were dressing up as, like, a character.”

According to CNN, Megyn Kelly also spoke about the backlash that Luann de Lesseps, a star on The Real Housewives of New York, faced after she dressed up as Diana Ross for Halloween in 2017, saying:

“There was a controversy on The Real Housewives of New York with Luann, and she dressed as Diana Ross, and she made her skin look darker than it really is and people said that that was racist. And I don’t know, I felt like who doesn’t love Diana Ross? She wants to look like Diana Ross for one day. I don’t know how, like, that got racist on Halloween.”

While Kelly apologized to her fellow panel members through a statement via an internal memo, NBC announced that it had decided to cancel her show days after the controversy.

Meanwhile, Jimmy Kimmel had previously worn blackface to impersonate celebrities like Snoop Dogg, Karl Malone, and Oprah Winfrey in his Comedy Central show, The Man Show, which aired between 1999 and 2004. In June 2020, Kimmel apologized for his past actions via a public statement, calling the sketches "embarrassing" and "thoughtless moments," as reported by the BBC.

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Megyn Kelly bashed Jimmy Kimmel for his comments about Charlie Kirk's assassination

Megyn Kelly was one of the many conservatives who were vocally critical of Jimmy Kimmel following his comments about Charlie Kirk's alleged shooter during the September 15 episode of his show. For the unversed, Kimmel's original comment was:

“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."

Two days after the episode aired, ABC announced that it was indefinitely suspending the show following criticisms from many, including FCC chairman Brendan Carr and media companies such as Sinclair and Nexstar.

Several conservatives celebrated the news of Kimmel's suspension, including Megyn Kelly. In an X post at the time, Kelly called out Kimmel for allegedly perpetuating a "vile disgusting lie," claiming that he had "falsely stated as a fact that Charlie Kirk’s killer was MAGA."

Megyn Kelly

@megynkelly

I’m not sure who needs to hear this but Jimmy Kimmel got on the air and falsely stated as a fact that Charlie Kirk’s killer was MAGA, smearing an entire movement and Trump in particular with a vile disgusting lie - and at a time when the threat against those on the right is at an all-time high.​This was *after* we knew from the UT gov that the killer had been indoctrinated into LEFT-wing ideology, *after* we’d seen the shooter’s bullet casings reflecting furry/trans memes, calling Charlie a fascist and w/anti-fascist lyrics. It was *after* we had learned the shooter was living with his trans-furry boyfriend and believed Charlie Kirk was “full of hate.” *After* we learned that the shooter was not registered GOP, but “unaffiliated.” *After* we saw him pull the trigger just as Charlie discussed trans killers. There was zero - ZERO - evidence the shooter was MAGA, had ever been MAGA, or was influenced by MAGA in any way.​This was an intentional lie to GIN UP HATRED toward the very group of ppl most suffering in the wake of our devastating loss of Charlie and Kimmel did it willfully and even gleefully to a cheering complicit audience.​ANY EMPLOYER IN MEDIA WOULD SEE HOW DEPRAVED AND SICK THIS WAS. (In 2021 ABC fired Chris Harrison for saying maybe we should judge a Bachelorette contestant’s attendance (years earlier) at an antebellum party by what was considered offensive at the time. FIRED! His career never recovered!)​The Left doesn’t believe ABC was genuinely horrified by Kimmel (& instead attributes this to the FCC threat). That’s bc even they know ABC has no moral core (we agree with you - it doesn’t).​But what the Left doesn’t seem to understand and needs to hear is that MAGA has f&cking HAD IT. We are ANGRY. We are INCENSED watching the L smear us, our ppl, literally getting some of our friends killed (not to mention our president shot and nearly assassinated again weeks later) and then LYING about it. (“Trump faked his injury! He wasn’t actually shot!” “We have no idea what the motives ever are … if they are bad for our side!”)​I have zero doubt ABC was overwhelmed with absolutely furious calls/comments/emails from truly-FED UP viewers, and knew it had crossed a deadly serious line.​In short, GOOD RIDDANCE.

Following this, the journalist called Kimmel a "despicable pig" during the September 18 episode of her eponymous show, The Megyn Kelly Show, saying:

"He's a despicable pig, and he said that when he knew that it wasn't the case, the evidence had been ubiquitous about this person's left-leaning and commitment to left-wing ideology. Did he come out on the air on Tuesday night and try to correct his lie? No, because it was a lie."

"It was an intentional misstatement of fact meant to mislead you. It was not a mistake, as some left-wing defenders are saying right now on X and his plan on Wednesday was not to go out and apologize that night either."

According to OK! Magazine, Megyn Kelly added that the show's cancellation was "good news," and threw more insults towards Kimmel, calling him "unkind," "a buffoon" and "a jerk."

She doubled down on her statements after ABC announced its decision to reinstate Kimmel's show. During a recent episode of her show, which aired on September 23, 2025, Megyn Kelly suggested that people on the left don't get cancelled, unlike people on the right, "who are getting canceled and even killed.”

Jimmy Kimmel Show Returns To ABC Line Up After Suspension (Image via Getty)

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Jimmy Kimmel Live! returned to the air on September 23, 2025. According to The Guardian, Kimmel addressed his suspension in his monologue and said government threats to silence comedians like him were "anti-American."