Jimmy Kimmel opened his final show of 2025 with an emotional message thanking his viewers for supporting him during a “strange” and “hard” year.
And by all accounts, it was: Disney briefly pulled his show off the air after the FCC threatened local TV affiliates, his close friend and bandleader Cleto Escobedo III tragically passed away, and funding for several causes he cares deeply about — including healthcare and childhood cancer research — has been cut by the Trump administration.
“This has been a strange year. It’s been a hard year. We’ve had some lows, we’ve had some highs. For me, maybe more than any year of my life,” Kimmel said, fighting back tears.
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“I just want to say that we appreciate your support, your enthusiasm, and not just for watching. This year, you literally pulled us out of a hole, and we cannot thank you enough personally.”
“This is not an an easy job to do, and sometimes it feels like we’re spinning our wheels,” he continued. You see so many awful and destructive acts, all this damage we inflict on ourselves on purpose. And it can make you feel crazy trying to wrap your head around these things that are so clearly wrong. You grow up reading Superman and you learn to value truth, justice, and the American way. And then you start to realize, especially over the last year, you don’t know where that all went. You don’t know what the American way even is anymore.”
“When I hear from people who tell me that they watch our show, and the shows that my friends and colleagues do on the other channels, and that it makes them feel less crazy, it makes me feel less crazy too.
“I also believe it is important that we as Americans let our friends in other countries… know that a lot of us are not OK with what is happening…. There is still much more good in this country than bad, and we hope that you will bear with us during this extended psychotic episode that we’re in the middle of.”
