TMZ apologized for the background laughter heard when it was covering the assassination of Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk.
TMZ founder Harvey Levin insisted in a video apology on X that the laughter had nothing to do with Kirk’s shooting at an event on the campus of Utah Valley University in Orem, pet Mediaite.
Kirk later died at Timpanogos Regional Hospital, IJR reported.
“We were livestreaming all day during this tragedy when something happened in our office. As we were reporting the assassination of Charlie Kirk, there were some people in the back room away from our news desk here who were watching a car chase and they were laughing, they were clapping, and you could hear it out here, and we want to make a couple of things clear. One is that, I know these people, and they were not laughing, they were not reacting that way about Charlie Kirk’s assassination. They were not. They would not work here if they did,” Levin said.
“Nevertheless … watching a car chase at that moment was tone deaf, and the sounds of laughter at that crucial moment were totally out of line,” a statement from TMZ read, per Newsweek.
TMZ executive producer Charles Latibeaudiere commented in the video of the “horrible timing.”
“… we acknowledge that it was horrible timing, and for that we are sorry.”
“And I get why if you were watching the stream, you may have felt that that’s what the laughter was about,” Latibeaudiere continued. “We assure you it was not about that, but it was horrible timing.”
“You can go back and look on the stream. I actually walked off camera to go back and find out what the hell was going on because it was inappropriate for the laughter at that time. But no one was laughing about the Charlie Kirk tragedy,” he added.
Levin said they “apologize for the way it sounded.”
TMZ employees were watching a car chase ABC7 during the livestream. During that coverage, the network announced Kirk had died.
Journalist Laura Loomer posted on X a video of TMZ’s livestream.
“Shameful and disgusting behavior by TMZ. Shame on them. Charlie is a husband and a father. He was murdered in cold blood,” she wrote.
