Jennifer Aniston recently sat down with Elle as part of its “Women in Hollywood” cover series, and while she mostly touched on her own career, the “Friends” star also weighed in on what she called ABC’s “dangerous” suspension of “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” in September.
“Unthinkable things are happening,” Aniston told the outlet. “It’s very dangerous and very unfortunate. But at the end of the day, we’re the viewers. We subscribe to these networks and streaming services, so it really comes down to the people and their voices.”
She noted, “All those subscription cancellations spoke volumes.”
Kimmel’s show was pulled for several days after he criticized the right-wing response to the fatal shooting of conservative activist Charlie Kirk, following pressure from Brendan Carr, President Donald Trump’s appointee to the Federal Communications Commission.
Aniston never mentioned Trump during the interview published Wednesday.
She has a longtime friendship with Kimmel and his wife Molly McNearney, however, who produces the show. Aniston also seemingly encouraged her Instagram followers last year to vote for then-Democratic nominee Vice President Kamala Harris.
The actor was certainly right in noting the backlash to Kimmel’s suspension, as cancellation rates skyrocketed for Disney+ and Hulu — two major streaming services owned by ABC’s parent company, Disney — amid widespread outcry from hundreds of celebrities.
The suspension was ultimately lifted within days after what Disney described in a statement as “thoughtful conversations.” Nexstar, the largest television owner in the country, said in its own statement at the time that it would continue to preempt “Jimmy Kimmel Live!”
Randy Holmes/ABC/Getty Images
“We all need to listen to both sides,” Aniston told Elle. “That’s what we’ve lost.”
She continued, “We’ve lost communication, we’ve lost sitting across the table and having a discussion that is productive, learning from each other. It feels like everyone is sort of stuck in their positions and it’s my way or the highway, and that’s just not how the world works.”
A group of former FCC chairs on Thursday called for the agency to abolish its “news distortion” policy, arguing it’s been “weaponized to chill press freedom” instead of being used as intended to punish broadcasters found to have “deliberately distorted” the news.
Protect Democracy, a nonprofit among the petitioners, cited its use to suspend Kimmel.
The group pointed to Carr’s invocation of it “to threaten ABC and Disney for airing late-night host Jimmy Kimmel’s commentary about Charlie Kirk’s murder — a clear example of how the policy enables government officials to target outlets for perceived critical coverage.”
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