Jimmy Kimmel’s show ‘indefinitely’ pulled off-air after Kirk comments
Jimmy Kimmel’s late-night talk show “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” has been suspended indefinitely following the host’s comments on the Charlie Kirk shooting.
“They’re gonna burn the city of Detroit down if the Pistons win,” Kimmel said during the 2004 NBA finals between the Detroit Pistons and Los Angeles Lakers.The remark “really offended Detroiters,” said Grace Gilchrist, former vice president and general manager of WXYZ-TV.Gilchrist decided to yank an episode of Kimmel’s show and aired “The Wayne Brady Show” on Channel 7 in its place.
ABC’s sudden announcement on Sept. 17 that it is taking “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” off the air indefinitely feels like an unprecedented moment in the history of TV and politics.
But it’s not the first time Kimmel has been pulled for something he said. Only when a Detroit TV station did it more than 20 years ago, the circumstances weren’t as serious and there even was a happy ending.
In 2004, WXYZ-TV (Channel 7) decided not to run an episode of Kimmel’s late-night show after the host made a joke about the ongoing NBA finals between the Detroit Pistons and the Los Angeles Lakers.
During halftime of Game 2 of the championship (which the Lakers ended up winning 99-91 in overtime), Kimmel quipped in a promotional spot: “I’m glad the Lakers are winning because besides the fact that I’m a Lakers fan, I realize they’re gonna burn the city of Detroit down if the Pistons win, and it’s not worth it.”
At the time, the Free Press said Kimmel was referencing the sporadic violence that happened in 1984 after the Detroit Tigers won the World Series.
The comment angered Pistons fans and the Motor City in general. “It really offended Detroiters,” said former WXYZ general manager Grace Gilchrist on Wednesday evening, recalling the incident. “Here we are at a very exciting time and (he was) taking a cheap shot like that.”
Kimmel apologized the next day and said he was only making a joke.Referring to the mayhem that occurred after the Lakers won the NBA finals in 2000, he added: “If I offended anyone, I am sorry. Clearly over the past 10 years, we in L.A. have taken a commanding lead in postgame riots. If the Lakers win, I hope to overturn my own car.”
On the night of the apology, Gilchrist was attending a party with ABC executives in California when she found out that Kimmel had made more anti-Detroit remarks at a taping for the show set to air the following day.
Gilchrist decided to yank that episode and aired “The Wayne Brady Show” on Channel 7 in its place. ABC followed Gilchrist’s lead and ran a Kimmel rerun nationally.
After that, Kimmel issued a more serious apology, stating: “When you’re 2,000 miles away from a city you’ve never lived in, it’s hard to understand the sadness people feel from something that happened in their town — even if it happened many years ago. It was never my intention to cause anyone pain.”
Concluded Kimmel, “I was trying to make a joke and I’m sorry it resulted in anything other than laughter.”
The Pistons ended up winning the NBA championship in 2004, four games to one over the Lakers. Two years later, in 2006, Kimmel brought his show and staff to Detroit for a week of broadcasts from the downtown Gem Theatre that were tied to the Super Bowl taking place that year in the Motor City.
Kimmel was gracious during his visit to the D, again stressing that he regretted the 2004 flap. “People from Detroit … think I meant something by that, which I really didn’t mean anything by,” he told the Free Press. “I was just saying something stupid on television.”
Says Gilchrist today of the whole incident, “The truth is, he was wonderful to the station from then on.”
Contact Detroit Free Press pop culture critic Julie Hinds at jhinds@freepress.com.