Robert De Niro plays the FCC chairman and stops Kimmel's Brooklyn monologue cold
The cameo and Guillermo's arrival from Dancing with the Stars drew nearly four million views in a day, about twenty-two times a usual first day for the channel.
Jimmy Kimmel LiveStory of Why this story? The video opened at a pace of 3,896,595 views a day, 22 times a normal first day on this channel (176,032).
Jimmy Kimmel Threatened by FCC Chairman Robert De Niro, Trump Renames A.I. & Guillermo Dances to NY
Jimmy Kimmel brought his show to the Brooklyn Academy of Music for a week of New York tapings, and on the third night a local legend walked into his monologue. Robert De Niro appeared as the chairman of the FCC, the regulator that oversees broadcast licenses, and the clip of his interruption drew close to four million views in its first day. A new monologue on the channel usually opens far lower; this one ran about twenty-two times past that.
The joke has history behind it. In September 2025, ABC took Jimmy Kimmel Live off the air for nearly a week after FCC Chairman Brendan Carr criticized one of Kimmel's monologues. Casting De Niro in the part turns that memory into a New York tough-guy bit. In the comments, viewers keep pointing to his baseball bat and to the cadence many recognize from his Al Capone in The Untouchables. Others are calling for him to guest host.
The rest of the segment is lighter. Guillermo finally makes it to Brooklyn after another night on Dancing with the Stars, and the comment section has nearly as much to say about his dancing, and how much fun he seems to be having, as about De Niro. Kimmel also takes on Trump's plan to rename A.I., an effort the description predicts will fail.
The comments came in about eight times faster than on a usual first day. That busy day more than doubled the channel's daily views. Billy Crystal's interview, posted the same day, was the night's other draw, and it found its own link to De Niro: Crystal talked about making Analyze This with him.
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- Channel
- Jimmy Kimmel Live
- Subscribers
- 22,300,000
- Channel views, pace per day
- 8,533,235 (on a normal day: 3,269,880)
- Video published
- October 1, 2026
- Video views so far
- 3,999,945 (less than a day online)
- Video views, pace per day
- 3,919,601
The numbers
The figures below show a monologue that left the channel's usual first day far behind, with a comment section that kept pace.
💡 Test your knowledge
Robert De Niro won his first Academy Award for which film?
De Niro won Best Supporting Actor for playing the young Vito Corleone in The Godfather Part II, at the 1975 Oscars.
