Jimmy Kimmel returned to his late-night television show Tuesday night after nearly a week-long suspension with a monologue filled with jokes and a smattering of choked-back, teary apologies.

The ABC host got emotional when explaining that he did not mean to come across as making fun of the death of conservative activist Charlie Kirk.

“You understand that it was never my intention to make light of a murder of a young man. I don’t think there’s anything funny about it,” he said. “Nor was it my intention to blame any specific group for the actions of what, it was obviously a deeply disturbed individual that was really the opposite of the point I was trying to make.”

“But I understand that to some that felt either ill-timed or unclear, or maybe both. And for those who think I did, point a finger, I get why you’re upset. If the situation was reversed, there’s a good chance I’d have felt the same way,” he continued.

ABC suspended Mr. Kimmel’s show last Wednesday after he falsely stated that “the MAGA gang [was] desperately trying to characterize this kid who murdered Charlie Kirk as anything other than one of them.”

A backlash swiftly ensued as affiliates said they would refuse to air the show and Brendan Carr, chair of the Federal Communications Commission, said ABC and the parent company Disney should penalize Mr. Kimmel for the comments.

The suspension was met with an uproar of concerns over free speech, mostly from fellow liberals but also some conservatives, whom Mr. Kimmel singled out Tuesday evening.

He called the response “overwhelming” and said he was happy to be back.

“I also want to thank all of you who supported our show, cared enough to do something about it, to make your voices heard, so that mine could be heard,” he said.

“I will never forget it and maybe, maybe, most of all, I want to thank the people who don’t support my show and what I believe, but support my right to share those beliefs anyway,” he said. “I never would have imagined that Ben Shapiro, Clay Travis, Candace Owens, Mitch McConnell, Rand Paul, even my old pal Ted Cruz, who, believe it or not, said something very beautiful on my behalf.”

“It takes courage for them to speak out against this administration. They did and they deserve credit for it,” he concluded.

He said the show is not what matters, but what does “is that we get to live in a country that allows us to have a show like this.”

The Walt Disney Company, the owner of ABC, said Monday that it would be bringing Mr. Kimmel’s show back after having “thoughtful conversations with Jimmy, and after those conversations, we reached the decision to return the show on Tuesday.”

“Last Wednesday, we made the decision to suspend production on the show to avoid further inflaming a tense situation at an emotional moment for our country,” Disney said in a statement. “It is a decision we made because we felt some of the comments were ill-timed and thus insensitive.”

However, Nexstar and Sinclair said the show won’t air on their ABC affiliates in areas like Washington, upstate New York, Salt Lake City, Seattle, parts of Texas, Tennessee, and elsewhere.

The two companies own more than a quarter of ABC affiliates nationwide.

He was suspended “indefinitely” over his comment that conservatives were desperately trying to deny the man arrested in Kirk’s death was a conservative.

One of the conspiracy theories that flew around social media in the wake of the shooting said he was a far-right “groyper,” but there was no direct evidence of it. 

The 22-year-old suspect, Tyler Robinson, was raised in Utah to a conservative family, but had been moving more left politically, his family said.

He also put anti-fascist slogans on his bullets and told his transgender lover that he had had enough of Kirk’s public hatred that he said could not be negotiated with.

Mr. Kimmel said Tuesday night that he didn’t agree with Disney’s decision to pull him off the air, but thanked the company for allowing the discussions that ultimately led to his return.

“Unfortunately, and I think unjustly, this puts them at risk,” Mr. Kimmel said. “The president of the United States made it very clear he wants to see me and the hundreds of people who work here fired from our job. Our leader celebrates Americans losing their livelihoods because he can’t take a joke.”

“A government threat to silence a comedian the president doesn’t like is anti-American,” he said.

• Mallory Wilson can be reached at mwilson@washingtontimes.com.