Late-night host Jimmy Kimmel addressed comments Tuesday night after his show was pulled off the air for five days for remarks he made about the assassination of Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk, but did not issue an apology.
ABC suspended Kimmel on Sept. 17 after broadcast station ownership groups Nexstar and Sinclair Broadcasting announced they would not air “Jimmy Kimmel Live” in the wake of comments the host made on Sept. 15 in the wake of the assassination of Kirk. While Kimmel did not explicitly apologize, he appeared to back away from some of the claims he made during his Sept. 15 episode.
“I want to make something clear, because it’s important to me as a human, and that is — you understand that it was never my intention to make light of the murder of a young man,” Kimmel said. “I don’t — I don’t think there’s anything funny about it.”
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“I posted a message on Instagram on the day he was killed, sending love to his family and asking for compassion and I meant it and I still do,” Kimmel continued. “Nor was it my intention to blame any specific group for the actions — it was a deeply disturbed individual. That was really the opposite of the point I was trying to make, but to some, that felt ill-timed or unclear or maybe both, and for those who think I did point a finger, I get why you’re upset. If the situation was reversed, there’s a good chance I would have felt the same way.”
Turning Point USA spokesman Andrew Kolvet reacted to Kimmel’s remarks with a post on X before the episode of Jimmy Kimmel Live had finished.
“Not good enough. Jimmy, it’s simple,” Kolvet posted. “Here’s what you need to say: ‘I’m sorry for saying the shooter was MAGA. He was not. He was of the left. I apologize to the Kirk family for lying. Please accept my sincere apology. I will do better. I was wrong.’”
Nexstar and Sinclair Broadcasting did not respond to requests for comment from the Daily Caller News Foundation.
Kimmel’s suspension came after other comments that celebrated, mocked or justified Kirk’s assassination took place in various social media venues online, especially on platforms like BlueSky, which led to multiple people, including MSNBC political analyst Matthew Dowd and Washington Post columnist Karen Attiah, being fired.
“We hit 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,” Kimmel said on the Sept. 15 episode.
Before the Sept. 15 episode where Kimmel made the controversial remarks, Republican Gov. Spencer Cox of Utah outlined some of the evidence recovered in the course of the manhunt for Tyler Robinson, who is accused of firing the shot that fatally wounded Kirk, during both a Sept. 12 press conference and on Sunday shows, including ABC’s “This Week” and “State of the Union” on CNN that aired on Sept. 14. Multiple outlets also reported on Robinson’s “leftist” ideology and left-wing slogans etched on the ammunition in the rifle.
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