Disney+ and Hulu users publicly said they were cancelling or planned to cancel their subscriptions after ABC suspended Jimmy Kimmel Live! in September 2025. Those posts showed a visible backlash, but the original coverage did not verify a mass cancellation count. A later report relayed an estimate of about 1.7 million cancellations across Disney+, Hulu and ESPN during one week; that figure was attributed indirectly to a Disney source and does not establish that the cancellations were caused by the controversy.
What happened in the Disney boycott backlash?
The backlash followed ABC’s indefinite pre-emption of Jimmy Kimmel Live! after Kimmel addressed reactions to Charlie Kirk’s killing. Kirk was killed while speaking at Utah Valley University on 10 September 2025. In his 15 September monologue, Kimmel said: “We had 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,” as quoted by Fortune.
Major ABC affiliate owners said they would stop carrying the show. Fortune also reported that FCC Chair Brendan Carr urged local broadcasters to “step up” and stop airing it, warning: “We can do this the easy way or we can do this the hard way.” ABC then announced the show would be pre-empted indefinitely. The sequence prompted calls on social platforms to boycott Disney and its streaming services.
What cancellation evidence was reported?
Public posts documented a visible reaction, not an overall count
TechRadar reported users on social media saying they had cancelled or planned to cancel Disney+ and Hulu subscriptions. Fortune quoted posts including “Just canceled my Disney+ account!” and “Hit them where it hurts: the $$$.” These are individual users’ statements, not a representative survey or a verified tally of completed cancellations. The original TechRadar report did not establish how many people cancelled.
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A later report relayed a larger, qualified estimate
On 30 September 2025, CinemaBlend relayed journalist Marisa Kabas’s report that a Disney source estimated about 1.7 million cancellations across Disney+, Hulu and ESPN during the week of 17–23 September. The same account described that figure as 436% above typical churn, but did not provide enough detail to independently assess the baseline or calculation. This is a second-hand estimate, not an audited public disclosure, and it covers three services—not just Disney+ and Hulu. It also does not establish that every cancellation was a response to the Kimmel controversy. See CinemaBlend’s account.
Did Disney’s cancellation page stop working?
Some users reported errors while trying to cancel. SAN cited a Bluesky post saying, “Trying to cancel Disney and their webpage is ‘unavailable due to an error’.” SAN reported that the cancellation portal was accessible again by Friday evening, 19 September. Temporary error reports do not show how many people completed cancellations, and they cannot be used as a measure of the boycott’s scale. SAN’s report documents the reported access problem.
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What do the subscriber figures tell us?
At the time of its 19 September 2025 report, TechRadar cited 183 million as the combined Disney+ and Hulu subscriber total at the last count in June 2025. That is a contemporaneous figure, not a current subscriber total. It provides context for the services’ scale but cannot, by itself, show how much the September backlash changed subscriptions.
The available reporting supports a distinction between three things: visible boycott calls, users’ self-reports, and an estimate attributed to a company source through a journalist. They are not interchangeable. No reviewed source establishes current 2026 subscriber totals or a lasting churn effect caused by this episode.
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