After the White House correspondents’ dinner shooting, Jimmy Kimmel came under criticism for a rather insensitive comment towards Melania Trump after he referred to her as an “expectant widow” during a parody monologue aired days before the incident.The remark was made during a skit in which Kimmel pretended to host the event while discussing the Trumps’ connections to Jeffrey Epstein. In the segment, he said, “Our first lady Melania is here. So beautiful, Mrs Trump, you have a glow like an expectant widow.”Melania Trump condemned the comment in a post on X, saying, “Kimmel’s hateful and violent rhetoric is intended to divide our country. His monologue about my family isn’t comedy- his words are corrosive and deepens the political sickness within America. People like Kimmel shouldn’t have the opportunity to enter our homes each evening to spread hate.“A coward, Kimmel hides behind ABC because he knows the network will keep running cover to protect him. Enough is enough. It is time for ABC to take a stand. How many times will ABC’s leadership enable Kimmel’s atrocious behavior at the expense of our community.”Donald Trump later weighed in, calling for ABC to fire the comedian. In a Truth Social post, he said, “I appreciate that so many people are incensed by Kimmel’s despicable call to violence, and normally would not be responsive to anything that he said but, this is something far beyond the pale. Jimmy Kimmel should be immediately fired by Disney and ABC.”
At a news conference, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt also criticised Kimmel’s remarks, saying, “This kind of rhetoric about the president, the first lady and his supporters is completely deranged.”Kimmel has since responded to the criticism and calls for his firing. On Monday’s episode of “Jimmy Kimmel Live!”, he said: “You know how sometimes you wake up in the morning and the First Lady puts out a statement demanding you be fired from your job? We’ve all been there. Right?”He explained that his “expectant widow” remark was “a joke about their age difference and the look of joy we see on [Melania’s] face” when she is with the president, adding that it was not meant as a call for violence.“It was a very light roast joke about the fact that he’s almost 80 and she’s younger than I am. It was not by any stretch of the definition a call to assassination. And they know that,” he said.Kimmel added, “I’ve been very vocal for many years speaking out against gun violence, in particular. But I understand that the First Lady had a stressful experience over the weekend. And probably every weekend is pretty stressful in that house. And also, I agree that hateful and violent rhetoric is something we should reject. I do. And I think a great place to start to dial that back would be to have a conversation with your husband about it.”The backlash follows a shooting near the correspondents’ dinner at the Washington Hilton, where the Trumps were attending. They were evacuated safely, and Donald Trump later described the evening as “a rather traumatic experience” for his wife.The suspect, identified as 31-year-old Cole Tomas Allen, was tackled by agents near a staircase leading down to a ballroom where hundreds of journalists, officials and public figures were attending the event. He appeared in court on Monday and was charged with attempting to assassinate the president.Some Republicans also weighed in on Kimmel before and after the incident. Meghan McCain wrote on X, “I am so deeply sick of Jimmy Kimmel and the hate he spreads in the world.”Kimmel has previously faced controversy over his comments. Last September, ABC suspended him after remarks about the shooting of conservative influencer Charlie Kirk, in which he said the “Maga gang” was trying to “score political points” from the murder.
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The network reinstated him a week later, and Kimmel said at the time, “I get why you’re upset.”
