When ABC suspended Jimmy Kimmel Live! in September, President Donald Trump crowed on social media that the show had been canceled. It wasn’t — Kimmel returned to the air six days later — but during that time, top Disney executives didn’t communicate with the White House.
That’s according to Disney Entertainment co-chair Dana Walden, who was a key figure in both the decision to pull Jimmy Kimmel Live! off the air on Sept. 17 and to restart the show the following week. In an interview on Bloomberg TV’s The Circuit, she said neither Trump himself nor anyone from the White House called her or Disney CEO Bob Iger to discuss the suspension.
“We did not hear from them,” she said.
Walden said the decision to suspend Kimmel and his show came down to wanting to “take the temperature down” after conservative activists took umbrage at comments he made about the murder of Charlie Kirk. Two large affiliate groups said they would drop the show and FCC chairman Brendan Carr threatened to investigate ABC stations’ broadcast licenses. “We didn’t think that was going to be possible that night,” she said. “So we hit pause to have conversations with Jimmy. We wanted to resolve the situation in a certain way to protect our employees, to think about our audience.”
She also dismissed reports that cancellations of Hulu and Disney+ surged during Kimmel’s suspension, calling them “highly exaggerated.”
Walden also discussed artificial intelligence’s impact on the entertainment industry and Disney’s potential succession plans with The Circuit host Emily Chang (though the episode was filmed before Disney’s dual actions Thursday of investing in OpenAI and sending Google a cease-and-desist letter about the tech giant’s use of Disney IP to train its AI models.)
Walden said that Disney is exploring using AI to be “faster [and] more efficient,” adding that “we are approaching all of that together with the actors, the writers, directors, who are our partners and have very strong feelings about what is a uniquely human story and how to protect the contributors in that process.” (Some of Hollywood’s unions have already expressed concerns over the OpenAI deal.)
“Disney magic is storytelling,” Walden added. “It doesn’t have to be any one form. So I think it is the fundamentals of a story are Disney. The technology has evolved rapidly throughout the history of the company.”
Walden deflected a question about Disney’s succession plans for when Iger steps down (again) as CEO; Walden is considered one of the leading candidates to take the top job.
“Being pit against my colleagues I don’t appreciate, because we have incredible relationships,” she said. “We are a very tight organization. I have enormous faith in where this company’s going. There is a world class team at this company who is navigating the path into the future.”
For what it’s worth, Kimmel has endorsed her.