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Jimmy Kimmel came back defiant — and viewers rewarded him

Poynter · Tom Jones · last updated

On Tuesday, ABC late-night host Jimmy Kimmel returned from his suspension with an empathetic but defiant monologue and included a joke about President Donald Trump. Kimmel said, “You almost have to feel sorry for him. He tried his best to cancel me. Instead, he forced millions of people to watch the show. That backfired bigly.”

Just how bigly?

By Wednesday afternoon, the video of the monologue on the show’s official YouTube page was at 15 million views and climbing. That dwarfs the most-watched Kimmel video on YouTube in the past six months.

The Hollywood Reporter’s James Hibberd wrote, “Kimmel has many short clips from his show of sketches and guest interview segments that have racked up tens of millions of clicks over the years, but Tuesday night set a record in terms of ‘Jimmy Kimmel Live!’ monologue videos. The video is still going strong and averaging about 1 million views an hour.”

 

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