Jimmy Kimmel has a message for Donald Trump this holiday season.
For its 2025 annual “Alternative Christmas Message,” British broadcast network Channel 4 asked Kimmel, 58, to serve as this year’s speaker — and the late night host used the opportunity to warn U.K. viewers that “tyranny is booming” in the United States.
Addressing ABC’s decision to place Jimmy Kimmel Live! on an indefinite hiatus on Wednesday, Sept. 17 — following the host’s remarks about Charlie Kirk — Kimmel said the situation unfolded because Trump “would like to shut me up because I don’t adore him in the way he likes to be adored.”
He added, “The American government made a threat against me and the company I work for, and all of a sudden we were off the air.”
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L: Jimmy Kimmel and family R: Donald Trump.
Jimmy Kimmel/Instagram; BRENDAN SMIALOWSKI/AFP via Getty I
Calling the show’s Sept. 23 return “a September Christmas miracle,” Kimmel credited the “millions and millions of people” who spoke out, saying the decision to pull the show was unacceptable.
“People who never watched my show, people who were on record saying they hate my show spoke out, they marched, they did this all to support the right to a free expression of speech,” Kimmel said on the broadcast. “And because so many people spoke out, we came back. Our show came back stronger than ever.”
He added, “We won, the President lost and now I’m back on the air every night giving the most powerful politician on earth a right and richly deserved bollocking.”
Kimmel told viewers he was sharing the story to warn that government censorship can happen anywhere — not just in countries like North Korea. “That’s what we thought, and now we’ve got King Donny the Eighth calling for executions,” he joked. “It happens fast.”
Quipping that Americans “have nothing against [England’s] king, just a problem with the guy who thinks he’s our king,” Kimmel said that the United States is “figuratively and literally tearing down the structures of our democracy.”
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“From the free press, to science, to medicine, to judicial independence, to the actual White House itself, we are a right mess. And we know this is also affecting you, and I just wanted to say sorry,” he said. “And we want you to know or, at least I want you to know, that we’re not all like him. We’re not all like that.”
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Referencing Hamilton, Kimmel acknowledged that America and England “didn’t start off on the greatest note,” but said films like Love Actually remind him that the two countries share “a special relationship.”
Kimmel then urged viewers not to give up on America. “We’re going through a bit of a wobble right now, but we’ll come around,” he said. “It may not seem like it, but we love you guys. We even love the things about you that you don’t like, like Simon Cowell, for instance.”
He concluded by saying America needs “about three years” to work through its challenges and thanked British viewers for their patience. “Thank you for Spider-Man. Merry Christmas, and happy holidays.”
