Jimmy Kimmel took home the award for best talk series at the 2026 Critics Choice Awards on Sunday night and used the moment to deliver a characteristically sharp acceptance speech that doubled as a commentary on politics, media consolidation, and the increasingly fragile state of late-night television.
Accepting the prize for Jimmy Kimmel Live!, which beat out The Late Show With Stephen Colbert, Late Night With Seth Meyers, The Daily Show, Watch What Happens Live With Andy Cohen, and YouTube hit Hot Ones, Kimmel said he was genuinely surprised by the win. He then proceeded to unroll an intentionally overlong written speech onstage, underscoring the joke.
“I really didn’t expect this,” Kimmel said, before thanking the Critics Choice Association and singling out several individual reviewers by name, including Jeffrey Howard of KCLV-TV in Las Vegas. Kimmel and Howard attended high school together back in Vegas.
Early in the speech, Kimmel joked that he would have preferred a different kind of recognition altogether, referring to a “FIFA peace prize,” the award President Donald Trump received at the recently renamed Kennedy Center during last month’s World Cup draw.
Kimmel also thanked “our friends at Disney,” listing CEO Bob Iger, entertainment co-chair Dana Walden, and OpenAI CEO Sam Altman. About Altman, Kimmel quipped that he was the executive “who now owns my voice and face. Please don’t do anything weird with it.”
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The remark appeared to reference Disney’s recent $1 billion investment in OpenAI, which included a licensing agreement allowing users of OpenAI’s Sora platform to generate video clips featuring characters from Marvel, Pixar, and Star Wars.
Turning to his fellow nominees, Kimmel joked that most of them, aside from Hot Ones host Sean Evans, “did not care enough to be here with you tonight.” Evans was shown on screen laughing during the speech, prompting Kimmel to add that Evans might someday be “the only one left.”
The joke landed amid growing uncertainty around the future of late-night television. In recent months, CBS canceled The Late Show, citing financial pressures. Trump has also publicly attacked Colbert, Kimmel, and Meyers, calling for all three hosts to be taken off the air.
Kimmel’s win follows a turbulent period for the ABC host. Earlier this fall, the network briefly suspended him after comments he made about the killer of conservative activist Charlie Kirk sparked backlash. Trump’s FCC chair subsequently threatened the broadcast licenses of ABC affiliates over the remarks.
“It was almost a near-death experience for me. Of course, not literally, but I did feel a little bit like Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn watching their own funeral, when all this stuff happened,” he told reporters backstage after receiving his award.
“To be here and to see that people reacted to it in not just a positive way, but in almost a desperate way, we’re like, ‘Oh boy, when they come after the comedians, this is when we draw the line.’ We’re very grateful that they drew the line at us.”
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Since returning to television, Kimmel and his wife and co-head writer, Molly McNearney, who joined him onstage Sunday, have spoken openly about free speech and the support they received during the suspension. Kimmel used part of his acceptance speech to address that moment directly.
“Thanks to all the writers and actors and producers and union members, many of you who are in this room, who supported us, who really stepped forward for us and reminded us that we do not take free speech for granted in this city or in this country. Your actions were important, and we appreciate them.”
He closed by returning to politics, offering what may have been the loudest laugh of the night.
“Most of all, I wanna thank our president, Donald Jennifer Trump,” Kimmel said. “Without whom, we’d be going home empty-handed tonight. So thank you, Mr. President, for all the many ridiculous things you do each and every day. It’s been a banner couple of weeks, and we can’t wait to get back on the air tomorrow night to talk about them.”
Moumita Basuroychowdhury is a Contributing Reporter at The National Digest. After earning an economics degree at Cornell University, she moved to NYC to pursue her MFA in creative writing. She enjoys reporting on science, business and culture news. You can reach her at moumita.b@thenationaldigest.com.
