Jimmy Kimmel used a win at the 31st Critics Choice Awards on Sunday night to aim fresh barbs at President Donald Trump while revisiting the free-speech fight that briefly pushed his late-night show off the air last year.
Kimmel accepted the award for best talk show for “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” at the ceremony in Santa Monica, hosted by Chelsea Handler and televised on E! and USA Network. He joked about an absent field of nominees, unfurled an exaggeratedly long printout of prepared remarks, and then pivoted to politics, thanking “our President, Donald Jennifer Trump” for supplying endless punch lines and for “all the many ridiculous things you do each and every day.”
Early in the speech, Kimmel cracked that a “FIFA Peace Prize” might have topped the trophy he was holding, a reference to a newly created award FIFA presented to Trump at the World Cup 2026 final draw in Washington, D.C., last month. The moment has drawn scrutiny in sports and political circles because the prize was new and closely tied to FIFA leadership’s public praise for Trump.
Kimmel also took a swipe at the tech world, thanking OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and joking that Altman “now owns my voice and face.” The line played off Disney’s recently announced three-year licensing agreement with OpenAI’s Sora video tool, paired with a $1 billion equity investment from Disney. Disney and OpenAI said the arrangement covers a library of characters and excludes talent likenesses or voices.
The acceptance speech landed after a volatile stretch for “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” in September 2025, when ABC paused the show for six days following backlash over Kimmel’s monologue comments tied to the assassination of conservative activist Charlie Kirk. An Associated Press report at the time described pressure from station groups and criticism from FCC Chairman Brendan Carr, whom the FCC lists as chair since Jan. 20, 2025. Supporters framed the pause as corporate capitulation; critics argued Kimmel’s remarks crossed a line during a fraught news cycle.
