Jimmy Kimmel thanked President Donald Trump for giving his show ratings a big leg up.
Kimmel returned to the air to shoot “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” on Tuesday after being suspended from the airwaves for a week. In a Thursday night episode of the show, he said the suspension helped juice viewership.
“Even though we’re still being preempted in 60 American cities, on Tuesday, we had our second-highest-rated show in almost 23 years on the air,” Kimmel said, to loud applause from the audience.
“Our monologue from Tuesday night has more than 21 million views just on YouTube alone,” he said. “And I want to say, we couldn’t have done it without you, Mr. President.”
As of press time, Kimmel’s monologue in his comeback episode, in which he slammed Trump and FCC chair Carr, has amassed 21.5 million views since it was uploaded on Tuesday.
Disney said in a press release on Tuesday that Kimmel’s show reached 6.26 million viewers on broadcast, citing Nielsen ratings. Broadcast affiliate station owners Nexstar and Sinclair have chosen not to air the show on their stations, even after Disney reinstated it.
“In addition to linear ratings, the monologue has garnered more than 26 million views across YouTube and social platforms,” Disney said in the press release.
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Disney, which owns ABC, “indefinitely” suspended Kimmel’s show on September 17 after Carr slammed Kimmel’s comments about the killing of the conservative political activist Charlie Kirk.
However, the media giant brought the show back after facing massive backlash on the decision.
Big names in media, Hollywood, and politics have criticized the Trump administration and accused it of infringing on free speech rights.
In his monologue on Tuesday, Kimmel also mocked Trump, who has on several occasions said that Kimmel’s show had no ratings.
“I do tonight,” he said on Tuesday.
Representatives for Kimmel did not respond to a request for comment from Business Insider.
