Jimmy Kimmel has refused to apologise for his “widow” joke about the first lady after she and President Donald Trump called for him to be fired.
The Jimmy Kimmel Live! host sparked controversy last week when he described Melania, 56, as glowing “like an expectant widow” during a skit, just days before the shooting at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner on Saturday.
“Our first lady Melania is here,” Jimmy said. “So beautiful, Mrs Trump, you have a glow like an expectant widow.”
On Monday, Melania addressed Jimmy’s sketch, which aired last Thursday, in a rare, personal statement on X, accusing him of “hateful and violent rhetoric,” and calling on “ABC to take a stand” against his “atrocious behavior.”
The president, 79, also shared a statement on Truth Social on Monday afternoon, claiming Jimmy’s remarks were a “call to violence” and he “should be immediately fired by Disney and ABC.”
During his opening monologue on Monday’s show, Jimmy responded to the Trumps, telling viewers: “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 then insisted that the joke was a “light roast” about the couple’s 24-year age gap, pointing out that he made it three days before the alleged assassination attempt.
“This was Thursday. There was no big reaction to it, until this morning, when I greeted the day facing yet another Twitter vomit storm and a call to fire me from our first lady, Melania Trump, saying I should be fired because of a joke I made, again, five nights ago. It was a pretend roast,” he pointed out.
He continued: “It obviously was a joke about their age difference and the look of joy we see on her face every time they’re together. It was a very light roast joke about the fact that he’s almost 80 and she’s younger than I am.
© Getty Images“It was not, by any stretch of the definition, a call to assassination, and they know that. I’ve been very vocal for many years, speaking out against gun violence, 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.”
© Getty ImagesJimmy said he was “sorry” for what everyone at the dinner went through, but added, “If you want us to believe that a joke I made three days before this dinner had any effect on anything that happened, well then, maybe someone should look into this psychic lady too.”
He then played a clip of White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt speaking before the dinner, saying, “There will be some shots fired tonight.”
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