Jimmy Kimmel Recalls Moment He Learned ABC Pulled His Show Off TV: 'I Thought It Was Over'

Jimmy Kimmel is revisiting the moment he learned ABC was suspending his beloved late-night talk show.

During a guest appearance on the Tuesday night, September 30, episode of The Late Show With Stephen Colbert, the famed comedian opened up to fellow funny man Stephen Colbert about his initial reaction to Jimmy Kimmel Live! being booted from TV.

Kimmel's late-night show was pulled off the air for almost one week toward the end of last month amid controversy involving the host's comments about Charlie Kirk's assassination and Donald Trump.

"It was about 3:00 [p.m.]. We tape our show at 4:30. I’m in my office, typing away as I usually do. I get a phone call, it’s ABC. They say they want to talk to me. This is unusual," he recalled of Wednesday afternoon, September 17.

Kimmel quipped: "As far as I knew, they didn’t even know I was doing a show previous to this, so I have like five people who work in my office with me, so the only private place to go is the bathroom."

"So I go into the bathroom. And I’m on the phone with the ABC executives and they say, 'Listen, we wanna take the temperature down. We’re concerned about what you’re gonna say tonight and we decided that the best route is to take the show off the air tonight,'" Kimmel continued, as the audience at Colbert's late-night show unanimously booed.

"That’s what I said. I started booing," he joked. "I said I don’t think that’s a good idea, and they said, 'Well, we think it’s a good idea.' And then there was a vote and I lost the vote."

After taking the call from the bathroom, Kimmel comedically noted he "put [his] pants back on" and walked back into his office to inform some staffers of the bad news.

"I called in some of the executive producers, and there were about nine people in there, and I said, 'They’re pulling the show off the air,'" he recounted.

Following the meeting, Kimmel admitted his wife told him he looked "whiter than Jim Gaffigan" because he "thought that it’s over."

"I was like, I’m never coming back on the air," he believed.

Kimmel pointed out how fans were already seated in the audience by the time ABC pulled his late-night show off the air, as they were about to start filming.

When it was finally time to leave the studio, Kimmel said he was "followed by 20 paparazzi cars" and "TMZ people jumping in front of me on the way home."

"We’re just trying to get to the house and we’re like, ‘Should we be going to our house?’ There are two helicopters following us home," he revealed, joking: "I hadn’t had makeup on yet, so my bald spot was not painted in. This is something I did not want America to see."