Just hours ahead of the grand return of Jimmy Kimmel Live! following a politically charged suspension, the guests for the show’s first episode back have been revealed as Sarah McLachlan and Glen Powell.
The singer-songwriter will join Jimmy Kimmel on the late-night couch to promote ABC News’ Lilith Fair: Building a Mystery documentary, which chronicles the touring music festival McLachlan founded in 1997 on behalf of female musicians.
“So happy that Jimmy Kimmel is back on the air and even happier to be performing on @JimmyKimmelLive TONIGHT!” McLachlan wrote on her Instagram.
Her appearance on the episode — which will air at 11:35 p.m. ET Tuesday (Sept. 23) on ABC — is particularly fitting, as McLachlan made headlines over the weekend for refusing to perform at the doc’s premiere in a seeming show of solidarity for the talk-show host.
“I’ve grappled with being here tonight and around what to say about the present situation that we are all faced with,” she said in a statement at the event. “The stark contraction to the many advances we’ve made watching the insidious erosion of women’s rights, of trans and queer rights, the muzzling of free speech.”
Kimmel’s other Tuesday guest, Glen Powell, is promoting his new comedy series Chad Powers, in which he stars alongside Steve Zahn, Toby Huss, Perry Mattfeld and Wynn Everett.
The update comes just one day after ABC announced that it would allow Kimmel to resume production after temporarily suspending the program due to the comedian’s remarks about conservative podcaster Charlie Kirk’s assassination. During his monologue on an episode earlier in September, Kimmel had said, “We hit some new lows over the weekend with the MAGA gang desperately trying to characterize this kid who murdered Charlie Kirk as anything other than one of them and doing everything they can to score political points from it.”
The comment led ABC affiliates Nexstar and Sinclair to pre-empt Kimmel from airing on the local channels under their jurisdiction — but only after FCC chairman Brendan Carr threatened to revoke the licenses of affiliates who continued to run the program. Shortly afterward, ABC — which is owned by Disney — announced Sept. 15 that it would be suspending production on Kimmel “indefinitely.”
After a week filled with protests from SAG-AFTRA, the ACLU and numerous celebrities, the corporation is singing a different tune. “We made the decision to suspend production on the show to avoid further inflaming a tense situation at an emotional moment for our country,” the network’s parent company shared in a statement on Monday (Sept. 22). “It is a decision we made because we felt some of the comments were ill-timed and thus insensitive. We have spent the last days having thoughtful conversations with Jimmy, and after those conversations, we reached the decision to return the show on Tuesday.”
