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Barstool Sports founder Dave Portnoy weighed in on the suspension of the ABC late-night talk show, Jimmy Kimmel Live!, via a September 17 post on X.
“With Kimmel getting canned, I’m seeing lots of people talking about the hypocrisy of cancel culture. To me, cancel culture is when people go out of their way to dig up old tweets, videos, etc, looking for dirt on somebody they don’t like in an effort to get them fired,” Portnoy wrote.
He claimed that if Kimmel “got cancelled for sh*t he did on The Man Show, that would be cancel culture.” Notably, Jimmy has maintained that he left The Man Show as his audience stopped relating to or appreciating the brand of comedy he and co-host Adam Carolla were portraying on the show in the later years.
In a 2018 interview with The Daily Beast, Kimmel added that one fine day, he and Carolla decided that it was “time to end this show” after a particular joke “went over the heads of every audience member.”
Now, after Jimmy Kimmel Live! was pulled off-air by ABC, the likes of Dave Portnoy have appeared to agree with the decision.
“When a person says something that a ton of people find offensive, rude, dumb in real time, and then that person is punished for it, that’s not cancel culture. That is, consequences for your actions,” the Barstool President wrote.
Kimmel, 57, was suspended by ABC after he took a dig at Donald Trump supporters for
“desperately trying to characterize this kid who murdered Charlie Kirk as anything other than one of them.”
Jimmy also mocked the POTUS for the manner in which he was “grieving” the murder of his “friend,” by redecorating the White House rather than releasing the Epstein list.
Exploring the reason behind Jimmy Kimmel’s exit from ‘The Man Show’
In 1999, Jimmy Kimmel began co-producing The Man Show with Daniel Kellison for Comedy Central. He also joined Adam Carolla as the co-host. However, in January 2003, the popular late-night host left The Man Show permanently after ABC offered him Jimmy Kimmel Live!
Speaking about his gig on The Man Show with The Observer in 2002, Kimmel stated:
“The idea that I am this guy who runs around snapping people in the a** with a towel, that's not really me... I like to think there is a little more to me than that. I know there is.”
According to The New York Times, The Man Show was often deemed chauvinistic, with Kimmel once describing it as “a joyous celebration of chauvinism.”
Later, Jimmy Kimmel told The Daily Beast in 2018, after The Man Show drew ire in the wake of the #MeToo Movement, that the show was always “tongue-in-cheek” and “some people enjoyed it for the wrong reasons.”
However, he claimed there were a lot of shows at the time that fit into that category, as they were well-liked and fun. He also defended his past show by saying that they “refined” it as the "show went on."
He explained, "The reason we left that show was because there was a specific day on which Adam and I looked at each other and said, 'It's time to end this show.'"
Kimmel added that a specific joke did not land, and they understood the audience had never heard it before, nor did they understand whether it was even a joke. He called it “disheartening,” and the final point was to “stop doing the show.”
Jimmy Kimmel also told The Hollywood Reporter in 2011 that the decision to end The Man Show was based on how “unruly” the studio audience had become, who only wanted to drink and see bikini-clad women. He added that he “cried” on the show and had a “hard time keeping my emotions within,” and he wished he could “turn it off.”
During his appearance on a 2019 episode of Andy Cohen’s Watch What Happens Live, Kimmel claimed that The Man Show would be “more popular than it ever was” if it aired now. However, the audience would be divided, with one section finding it “exhilarating” and the other sparking “outrage.”
In April 2025, Jimmy Kimmel spoke to Rolling Stone about Trump supporters and defenders who were digging up his clips from The Man Show and calling him a “hypocrite” for criticizing the POTUS:
“I think it’s kind of funny, because the very people who are using those videos as an example of why I’m a horrible person were probably the biggest fans of the show at that time. We did the show a little tongue-in-cheek,” Jimmy Kimmel added.
The former radio host continued:
“I mean, if you really watch the show, we are making fun of ourselves through almost the whole show. It was not meant to be taken literally that men are superior to women, but for some people, it was… But you can pull things out of context, and then they are taken literally. And that’s just how it goes.”
He noted there was no black and white in comedy, no line, adding,
“I don’t think anybody should be canceled. I really don’t.”
While Dave Portnoy seemed to be in favor of Kimmel’s suspension, calling it the “consequences of his actions,” other prominent figures slammed the move by ABC. Actor Ben Stiller wrote,
“This isn’t right” on X.
Comedian Sarah Cooper also took to the platform and wrote that she was
“pretty much scared to say anything at this point. Scared to even say I’m scared.”
Another stand-up comic, Alex Edelman, tweeted,
Trending
“This is the actual cancel culture everyone claims to hate so much.”
According to The Daily Mail, Portnoy himself fired an intern for sending a wrong message to Charlie Kirk’s family earlier this week.
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