Adam Carolla reacts to ABC suspending show of his former co-star Jimmy Kimmel
Adam Carolla, who once co-hosted "The Man Show" with now-outspoken liberal Jimmy Kimmel, reflected on what the indefinite suspension of "Jimmy Kimmel Live!" means for America.
"I think a lot of people want me to comment on it," Carolla said on Thursday's episode of his radio show, "The Adam Carolla Show." "My feeling is this: I don’t think he should have been fired. It’s a weird thing. The right and the left are always sort of misinterpreting things. He was inaccurate about something. It wasn’t like he was necessarily attacking Charlie Kirk. He was trying to dump it on Trump and inaccurate about it."
Disney announced Wednesday it had pulled Kimmel's late-night show "indefinitely" after he suggested that Tyler Robinson, the 22-year-old Utah man charged with the assassination of conservative activist Charlie Kirk, was part of the "MAGA gang," despite reports he had a left-wing ideology. This was later reaffirmed in details from Tuesday's indictment.
Kimmel and Carolla both rose to fame in the early 2000s as co-hosts of Comedy Central's sketch comedy series "The Man Show." The show’s humor thrived on political incorrectness as it touted male stereotypes, famously featured "girls on trampolines," and Kimmel himself repeatedly donned blackface to impersonate celebrities like Oprah Winfrey and NBA star Karl Malone, according to archived Comedy Central clips and resurfaced interviews. He also used the n-word while parodying Snoop Dogg's music in 1996.
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Over the last decade, particularly since 2017, Kimmel took a decisively liberal turn in his commentary, ranging from jokes to scathing political monologues. Still, Carolla defended him as his friend, even as he said Kimmel’s statement about Kirk’s assassin was "inaccurate."
Carolla lamented that a modern part of the media landscape is that when some shocking attack happens, there will be immediate narratives where each side tries to pin the blame on the other.
"I don’t like the government getting involved," he argued. "And I’ve heard every side of the story, and in general I just want people to speak and then the ratings will do the talking and then you can support them or not support them."
Carolla warned listeners about how easy it is for people on either side of the political aisle to view their opposition as shallow "cartoon characters" that are easy to hate.
"I know Jimmy to be a very good guy, and a generous guy, and I’ve always said that about him. And I realize that while everyone else knows Jimmy as a caricature, I know him as a person," Carolla continued, explaining that conservative friends will ask him, "‘What’s up with your buddy Jimmy?’"
"Well, I know him, so that’s why I don’t think of him like you think of him," Carolla responded. "But on the other hand, they think of you as a cartoon character too."
He laid out how this problem "at a certain point" manifested as "the assassin who thinks of Charlie Kirk as a cartoon character, not a dude. I know him as a guy, sweet guy, fair guy, family guy, good American. But that guy looks at him as a cartoon character."
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"I know Jimmy is a human and I know how good he is, and I know how decent he is, and we disagree politically, but who cares? We disagree on pizza toppings as well, but it doesn’t mean we don’t talk," Carolla said.