{"id":713132,"date":"2026-06-19T07:33:08","date_gmt":"2026-06-19T07:33:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/713132\/"},"modified":"2026-06-19T07:33:08","modified_gmt":"2026-06-19T07:33:08","slug":"jimmy-kimmel-mocks-larry-david-for-having-slave-owning-relatives","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/713132\/","title":{"rendered":"Jimmy Kimmel Mocks Larry David for Having Slave-Owning Relatives"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tOn Thursday night, Larry David<\/a>, maybe the funniest living person, visited \u201cJimmy Kimmel Live!\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n

\n\tOstensibly to promote \u201cLife, Larry, and the Pursuit of Unhappiness,\u201d<\/a> his sketch-comedy series honoring America\u2019s 250th birthday by skewering events from its history, and premiering June 26 on HBO, the legendary comedian also happened to make his appearance the same day that around two million New York Knicks fans celebrated the team winning its first NBA title in 53 years at a euphoric ticker-tape parade in Manhattan. David, for his part, was courtside during the team\u2019s miraculous Game 4 win against the Spurs, where the Knicks battled from 29 points down to snatch victory from the jaws of defeat on a tip-in from OG Anunoby with 1.2 seconds to go, capping the greatest comeback in NBA Finals history. (Fortunately, David didn\u2019t manage to trip any Knicks players that night like he did Shaq<\/a>.)<\/p>\n

\n\tWhen Kimmel asked David about being so enthusiastic at that fateful Knicks game, he launched in a long-winded explanation, as only he can.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cIt\u2019s funny: at a game like that, that\u2019s the only time I can really feel like a human being because I\u2019m doing what other people are doing. And usually, I\u2019m outside of what other people are doing because I can\u2019t stand doing what people do,\u201d he explained, adding, \u201cBut I have to tell you something\u2026 so stressful. So stressful. That game took years off my life. The whole Playoffs took years off my life.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cDo you trash-talk the players from the other team?\u201d asked Kimmel.<\/p>\n

\n\tCue David, who launched into how he tried to psych out Spurs star Victor Wembanyama: \u201cWhat I do is: I try to make eye contact. I was right on the bench \u2014 I was right by the Spurs\u2019 bench \u2014 so I look at the players and I\u2019m trying to make eye contact, hoping that they\u2019ll maybe recognize me from TV, and I\u2019ll go, \u2018Hey, Wemby\u2019s looking at me,\u2019 and Wemby goes, \u2018Hey, Larry David<\/a>! I really like your show!\u2019 That\u2019s it \u2014 I\u2019m rooting for the Spurs. That\u2019s it. That\u2019s all it takes! One Spur recognizes me and I\u2019m switching over immediately.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThankfully, no Spurs recognized him.<\/p>\n

\n\tLater on in the program, Kimmel welcomed Henry Louis Gates Jr. onto the show. If you recall, David was one of the more memorable guests on Gates\u2019 show \u201cFinding Your Roots<\/a>.\u201d When he found out that his great-great-grandfather owned slaves, David exclaimed, \u201cOh, you did it! You did it! I knew it! I knew it! Unbelievable! Boy. Boy oh boy.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tWhen Kimmel asked Gates (with David seated next to him) if anyone had \u201cever been that excited and enthusiastic about finding out that their great-great-grandfather was a slaveowner,\u201d Gates replied, \u201cHe thought he was safe, you see, because he was descended from a Jewish immigrant\u2026 There was a movement in the 1850s of Jews from Bavaria who went to the South, and his great-great-grandfather, whose name was Henry Bernstein, migrated from Bavaria to Mobile, Alabama, he joined the Confederacy, and he owned two slaves.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tGates added that Kimmel also had relatives from Germany, to which Kimmel offered, \u201cBut, just for the record: My family never had any slaves, whereas Larry\u2019s family were slaveowners.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tTo that, a smiling David shot back, \u201cOh, I guess that makes you better than me, right?\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"On Thursday night, Larry David, maybe the funniest living person, visited \u201cJimmy Kimmel Live!\u201d Ostensibly to promote \u201cLife,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":713133,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[54],"tags":[88,42390,17114,15820,64756,92],"class_list":["post-713132","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tv","tag-entertainment","tag-finding-your-roots","tag-jimmy-kimmel","tag-larry-david","tag-slavery","tag-tv"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/713132","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=713132"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/713132\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/713133"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=713132"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=713132"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=713132"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}