Jimmy Kimmel Tearfully Thanks Viewers After “A Hard Year”: “You Literally Pulled Us Out of a Hole”

ABC late night host Jimmy Kimmel opened his monologue Thursday with tears in his eyes, reflecting on what he acknowledged was a difficult year.

“This has been a strange year. It’s been a hard year,” Kimmel said. “We’ve had some lows. We’ve had some highs. For me, maybe more than any year of my life.”

Thursday was Kimmel’s last new show of 2025, closing the door on a year that saw the host suspended by ABC’s parent company Disney, targeted by the President of the United States, and grappling with the unexpected and untimely death of his show’s bandleader, and his longtime friend, Cleto Escobedo.

“On behalf of all of us at the show, 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,” Kimmel told the audience. “I know there are a lot harder jobs, but this is not an easy job to do, and sometimes it feels like we’re spinning our wheels. 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.”

Kimmel and his wife and head writer Molly McNearney believed that when ABC suspended him (after local stations threatened to preempt it), his career at the network was likely over.

“I watched a show, co-workers, friends and the man I love be put on ‘indefinite suspension’ after our thin-skinned president asked for his removal and his FCC chair publicly threatened the company we work for. It is a fragile time for freedom,’” McNearney said at The Hollywood Reporter’s Women In Entertainment brunch.

Of course, ultimately the show returned, and ABC inked a new one-year deal with Kimmel, keeping him in late night through at least May of 2027.

Kimmel, in his Thursday monologue, reflected on the state of politics.

“You know, you grew 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 the what the American way even is anymore,” Kimmel said. “But 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, and I think that’s an important thing.

“I also think it’s important that we as Americans let our friends in other countries who watch the show on YouTube, on Instagram, Hulu, wherever, know that a lot of us are not okay with what is happening,” he continued. “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.”

Watch the monologue, below: