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Jimmy Kimmel has reflected on the jokes he’s made during his tenure as a late night host that caused a headache for his network ABC and their parent company the Walt Disney Company — but says there’s one apology he regrets making.
In a new interview with Vulture, Kimmel, 58, pointed to a segment from 2013 in which he asked small children to respond to stories in the news, and one suggested that a solution to the national debt would be to “kill everyone in China.”
The moment drew protests and Kimmel subsequently issued an apology, but told the publication he did so under duress.
“For the good of the Disney company, I took that bullet,” he said.
Kimmel has apologized for many other moments during his late night run, including blackface impressions of Oprah Winfrey and NBA player Karl Malone that he did in the 1990s. “I don’t consider an apology to be a defeat,” Kimmel told the publication. “I think that’s the very basis of Catholicism.”
‘For the good of the Disney company, I took that bullet,’ said Kimmel of his apology for a controversial segment (AFP/Getty)
Last September, Kimmel was suspended by ABC for a week following a furor over his comments about the death of conservative activist Charlie Kirk.
In the new interview, Kimmel explains that he pushed back at the idea he would have to apologize for something he doesn’t think has crossed a line, saying: “One of the things we talked about when I first got suspended was that I can’t do this show if I’m going to be micromanaged.”
The late night host recently drew the ire of Trump once again for joking that the First Lady Melania Trump had the “glow of an expectant widow” days before the attempted shooting at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner. Kimmel revealed that Disney did not require him to apologize, only to “respond and move on.”
During a subsequent monologue, Kimmel argued that his joke had been misinterpreted as a call to violence and insisted that it was actually a reference to the president and first lady’s age difference. Donald Trump will be 80 this month, while Melania recently turned 56.
Kimmel went on to point out that his joke was “not, by any stretch… a call to assassination, and they know that I’ve been very vocal for many years speaking out against gun violence.”