{"id":615879,"date":"2026-06-01T21:06:30","date_gmt":"2026-06-01T21:06:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/615879\/"},"modified":"2026-06-01T21:06:30","modified_gmt":"2026-06-01T21:06:30","slug":"jimmy-kimmel-says-he-regrets-apologizing-for-joke-for-the-good-of-the-disney-company","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/615879\/","title":{"rendered":"Jimmy Kimmel says he regrets apologizing for joke \u2018for the good of the Disney company\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Jimmy Kimmel<\/a> has reflected on the jokes he\u2019s made during his tenure as a late night host that caused a headache for his network ABC<\/a> and their parent company the Walt Disney Company<\/a> \u2014 but says there\u2019s one apology he regrets making.<\/p>\n

In a new interview with Vulture, <\/a>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 \u201ckill everyone in China.\u201d <\/p>\n

The moment drew protests and Kimmel subsequently issued an apology, but told the publication he did so under duress. <\/p>\n

\u201cFor the good of the Disney company, I took that bullet,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

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. \u201cI don\u2019t consider an apology to be a defeat,\u201d Kimmel told the publication. \u201cI think that\u2019s the very basis of Catholicism.\u201d <\/p>\n

\"\u2018For\u2018For the good of the Disney company, I took that bullet,\u2019 said Kimmel of his apology for a controversial segment (AFP\/Getty)<\/p>\n

Last September, Kimmel was suspended by ABC for a week<\/a> following a furor over his comments about the death of conservative activist Charlie Kirk<\/a>.<\/p>\n

In the new interview, Kimmel explains that he pushed back at the idea he would have to apologize for something he doesn\u2019t think has crossed a line, saying: \u201cOne of the things we talked about when I first got suspended was that I can\u2019t do this show if I\u2019m going to be micromanaged.\u201d <\/p>\n

Kimmel has repeatedly ruffled the feathers of President Donald Trump with a string of digs at his administration. <\/a><\/p>\n

The late night host recently drew the ire of Trump once again for joking that the First Lady Melania Trump had the \u201cglow of an expectant widow\u201d days before the attempted shooting at the White House Correspondents\u2019 Dinner.<\/a> Kimmel revealed that Disney did not require him to apologize, only to \u201crespond and move on.\u201d <\/p>\n

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\u2019s age difference. Donald Trump will be 80 this month, while Melania recently turned 56. <\/p>\n

Kimmel went on to point out that his joke was \u201cnot, by any stretch… a call to assassination, and they know that I’ve been very vocal for many years speaking out against gun violence.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Your support helps us to tell the story From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":615880,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[96,391,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-615879","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tv","tag-entertainment","tag-tv","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/615879","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=615879"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/615879\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/615880"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=615879"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=615879"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=615879"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}