How Jimmy Kimmel Went From ‘The Man Show’ to MAGA Adversary

In a matter of days, Jimmy Kimmel has emerged as a singular adversary of the American right, after anger over his comment that the “MAGA gang” was looking to “score political points” from the fatal shooting of the conservative activist Charlie Kirk led ABC to pull his late-night show indefinitely.

The network’s decision has led to polarized reactions: glee from Kimmel’s critics and outcry over censorship concerns from his supporters. It is a remarkable chapter for a comedian whose early career mocked social progressivism and traded in the crude humor that resembles much of the so-called manosphere that has emerged in podcasts and streaming.

A performer on national TV for more than two decades, Kimmel has evolved from a satirist who delighted in political incorrectness to a dependable M.C. palatable enough to host the Oscars and the Emmys. On “Jimmy Kimmel Live!,” he has used the late-night forum to regularly skewer the sitting administration and weigh in on the culture wars that now find him at their center.

Here are key moments from Kimmel’s TV career so far.

1999-2003

‘The Man Show’

After co-hosting a Comedy Central game show, Kimmel rose to fame on the sketch comedy series “The Man Show,” a raunchy satire of machismo that often seemed to be only half-joking. The show’s first episode opened with an elaborate metaphor that served as its mission statement. Alongside the co-host Adam Carolla, Kimmel called the program “a dam to stop the river of estrogen that is drowning us in political correctness.” Kimmel hosted the show until 2003, when Joe Rogan, the comedian turned era-defining podcaster, became one of the hosts to take his place for its final two seasons. In 2020, Kimmel apologized for wearing blackface on the show to portray celebrities that included Karl Malone and Oprah Winfrey.