On Wednesday 17 September, the Disney-owned ABC abruptly cancelled the Jimmy Kimmel Show after the host criticised Donald Trump. The backlash has been swift, with celebrities speaking out, and paying customers cancelling their Disney-related subscriptions:
Canceled my @DisneyPlus and @hulu subscriptions since @ABCNetwork wants to bow down to fascism in this country. #ShowYourReceipt pic.twitter.com/JM3EdiPS9M
— ritziroo (@ritziroo) September 18, 2025
The question for Disney now is: can they afford to side with Trump and his war on free speech?
Boycott the mouse
It’s reported that ABC cancelled Kimmel following a threat from Trump’s FCC chair.
ABC just ripped Jimmy Kimmel off the air indefinitely. This comes just hours after the FCC Chair threatened ABC and Disney. And weeks after Colbert was cancelled. This isn’t freedom of speech. This is MAGA overreach. pic.twitter.com/90cV6dzrBw
— Ed Markey (@EdMarkey) September 18, 2025
Rolling Stone reported on the sacking and the atmosphere of fear that the Trump administration has invoked:
In the hours leading up to the decision to pull Kimmel, two sources familiar with the matter say, senior executives at ABC, its owner Disney, and affiliates convened emergency meetings to figure out how to minimize the damage. Multiple execs felt that Kimmel had not actually said anything over the line, the two sources say, but the threat of Trump administration retaliation loomed.
“They were pissing themselves all day,” one ABC insider tells Rolling Stone.
Even before Trump won the 2024 election, he and some of his closest advisers had plotted how to use the FCC and other powerful federal organs to punish late-night comics who Trump has hated for years.
On 17 September, the Canary reported how Trump has used lawyers to attack the media, with the latest example being a $15bn lawsuit against the New York Times. This followed lawsuits against ABC News and CBS in which Trump was able to negotiate out-of-court settlements worth millions.
In response to Kimmel’s sacking, people have begun cancelling their subscriptions:
Goodbye, @DisneyPlus. I won’t miss you. #BoycottDisney pic.twitter.com/JVZ4OoaaJR
— Reed Galen (@reedgalen) September 18, 2025
Weird. @DisneyPlus keeps crashing when I try to cancel my subscription. Wonder if it’s a bit busy? @jimmykimmel #WEIRD #canceldisney pic.twitter.com/w0ud8Aqi7d
— Jody Vance (@jodyvance) September 18, 2025
At the same time, Kimmel’s Hollywood contemporaries are speaking out against the obvious censorship, as Newsweek reported:
Actors including Ben Stiller, Wanda Sykes, and Jamie Lee Curtis voiced support for Kimmel, while SAG-AFTRA condemned the suspension as a violation of free speech. Critics say the decision reflects growing political influence over broadcast media and raises concerns about censorship in an election year.
Sykes commented on the issue, saying: “Let’s see. He didn’t end the Ukraine war or solve Gaza within his first week. But he did end freedom of speech within his first year. Hey, for those of you who pray, now’s the time to do it. Love you, Jimmy.”
One Tree Hill star Sophia Bush said: “The First Amendment doesn’t exist in America anymore. Period. Fascism is here and it’s chilling.”
The Canary reported on how the Kimmel sacking is part of a much larger anti-free speech drive being pushed by Trump and his supporters.
Target
Several people have linked the boycott to the campaign against American retail company Target:
This #boycottDisney movement will be tank that stock price so massively that it will rival what we did to Target, GET READY and cancel your @DisneyPlus subscription right now
— Stefanie Iris Weiss 🔥⚡️🇺🇦 (@EcoSexuality) September 17, 2025
In January 2025, Target announced plans to end its Diversity, Equality, and Inclusion (DEI) initiatives. It happened around the same time that Trump and his supporters were criticising DEI, going so far as to blame an air tragedy on the practice in one instance.
Georgia pastor Jamal Bryant organised a boycott in response to Target’s decision, which resulted in a 2.8% drop in sales in Q1 alone. By August this year, CEO Brian Cornell exited the company after it suffered a 21% reduction to net income in Q2. Cornell had headed the company since 2014.
I guess Disney/ABC/Hulu is unaware how effective the long-term boycott of Target has been. 🤷🏻 https://t.co/qj54P6z7dX
— Kushibo MPH, Monster Island (actually a peninsula) (@kushibo) September 18, 2025
Shifting systems
At this point, we probably have to stop describing the American model as ‘late-stage capitalism’. We’re not sure what we’re looking at now, but it’s clearly not a system in which corporations dictate the direction of travel. Instead, we have a world in which increasingly panicked CEOs make knee-jerk decisions to avoid the wrath of the orange toddler – decisions which are tanking their bottom lines and obliterating their long-term viability.
This is pure Trumpism, in other words, and it’s chaos.
Featured image via Heute (license details) / Pixabay
