Once upon a time, Democrats eagerly awaited Jimmy Kimmel’s return to late-night television after ABC/Disney pulled Jimmy Kimmel Live! off the air for not even a week following backlash over comments he made about the killing of conservative activist Charlie Kirk.

In a monologue, Kimmel lied when he criticized how some conservatives were trying to frame the killer as being affiliated with MAGA (Trump supporters).

The chapter of waiting for Kimmel to come back on the air, however, is now closed, and most of that audience has left the viewing party.

According to the Daily Mail, Kimmel’s big return pulled in a flashy 6.26 million viewers on Tuesday, September 23 – but the honeymoon lasted about as long as one of his bad jokes. Within just two days, ratings flatlined, crashing 64% to 2.3 million. The all- important 25–54 demo fared even worse, bleeding out 73%. To put it in perspective, before the controversy Kimmel was limping along with around 1.57 million viewers per episode, and by August he’d sunk even lower, scraping the bottom at just 1.10 million.

Sure, if you squint hard enough, you could argue that even after the recent nosedive in ratings that Kimmel is still pulling nearly double his August numbers. But how long can that last? The fallout makes one thing clear: the Left doesn’t actually like Kimmel all that much, but they’ll prop him up anyway. Why? Because he’s a reliable Trump hater, and in their world, that’s the only qualification that matters. They cheer him on while not actually supporting him with their time and eyeballs.

In the end, Kimmel’s comeback looks less like a revival and more like a sympathy spike. The crowd showed up for the drama, not the comedian – and now that the curtain’s up, the seats are emptying.