{"id":570,"date":"2026-04-28T04:17:00","date_gmt":"2026-04-28T04:17:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/newsmag.live\/2026\/04\/28\/jimmy-kimmel-defends-melania-trump-widow-joke-refuses-to-apologize-for-it\/"},"modified":"2026-04-28T04:17:00","modified_gmt":"2026-04-28T04:17:00","slug":"jimmy-kimmel-defends-melania-trump-widow-joke-refuses-to-apologize-for-it","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/newsmag.live\/ja\/2026\/04\/28\/jimmy-kimmel-defends-melania-trump-widow-joke-refuses-to-apologize-for-it\/","title":{"rendered":"\u30b8\u30df\u30fc\u30fb\u30ad\u30f3\u30e1\u30eb\u3001\u30e1\u30e9\u30cb\u30a2\u30fb\u30c8\u30e9\u30f3\u30d7\u3092\u300c\u672a\u4ea1\u4eba\u300d\u3068\u63f6\u63c4\u3057\u305f\u30b8\u30e7\u30fc\u30af\u3092\u64c1\u8b77\u3057\u3001\u8b1d\u7f6a\u3092\u62d2\u5426"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\t \t \t\t<\/svg>\t\tLogo text<\/span> \t<\/a> <\/p>\n

\tJimmy Kimmel<\/a> pushed back on the backlash against his \u201cexpectant widow\u201d joke, declining to apologize for the joke itself and instead mocking the Trumps\u2019 calls to cancel his show.<\/p>\n

\tDuring his Monday night monologue, the Jimmy Kimmel Live!<\/em> host took the stage in a pitch-black suit and told ABC viewers, \u201cYou 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\u2019ve all been there, right?\u201d <\/p>\n

\tKimmel briefly explained the history of the White House Correspondents\u2019 Dinner and how there used to be a comedian hosting the annual event, but Trump has halted that tradition to avoid being mocked. Kimmel explained that on Thursday\u2019s show, he told jokes as if he were hosting the event, and re-told his joke: \u201cOf course, our first lady, Melania, is here. Look at her, so beautiful. Mrs. Trump, you have a glow like an expectant widow.\u201d \t<\/p>\n

\t\u201cThere 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,\u201d Kimmel said. \u201cObviously, it was a joke about their age difference and the look of joy we see on her face every time they\u2019re together. It was a very light roast joke about the fact that he\u2019s almost 80 and she\u2019s younger than I am. It was not \u2014 by any stretch of the definition \u2014 a call to assassination. And they know that. I\u2019ve been very vocal for many years, speaking out against gun violence, in particular.\u201d<\/p>\n

\t\u201cBut I understand that the first lady had a stressful experience over the weekend, and probably every weekend is pretty stressful in that house,\u201d he continued. \u201cAnd 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. Donald Trump<\/a> is allowed to say whatever he wants to say, as are you and as am I. Because under the First Amendment, we have, as Americans, a right to free speech.\u201d \t<\/p>\n

\tThat said, Kimmel expressed regret for the traumatic experience that everybody in the WHCD ballroom went through. \u201cI am sorry that [Melania] and the president and everyone in that room on Saturday went through that \u2014 that I really am,\u201d he said. \u201cJust because no one got killed doesn\u2019t mean it wasn\u2019t traumatic and scary, and we should come together. We really should. But 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.\u201d<\/p>\n

\tThen Kimmel played a clip of White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt saying before the event that \u201cthere will be some shots fired tonight.\u201d <\/p>\n

\tThe comments follow both Melania Trump and Donald Trump calling on ABC to cancel his show in the wake of a shooting<\/a> outside the White House Correspondents\u2019 Dinner ballroom. <\/p>\n

\tIn a twist of fate, the person performing on stage during the WHCD when the shooting broke out, mentalist Oz Pearlman<\/a>, was scheduled to be a guest on Monday\u2019s show. He was replaced by\u00a0Pod Save America<\/em> host\u00a0Jon Lovett.<\/p>\n

\tEarlier Monday, Trump wrote on Truth Social, \u201cWow, Jimmy Kimmel, who is in no way funny as attested to by his terrible Television Ratings, made a statement on his Show that is really shocking,\u201d wrote Trump. \u201cI appreciate that so many people are incensed by Kimmel\u2019s 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.\u201d \t<\/p>\n

\tWhile Melania Trump, in a rare dip into the political discourse fray, wrote, \u201cKimmel\u2019s hateful and violent rhetoric is intended to divide our country. His monologue about my family isn\u2019t comedy\u2014his words are corrosive and deepens the political sickness within America. People like Kimmel shouldn\u2019t 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.\u00a0It is time for ABC to take a stand.\u00a0How many times will ABC\u2019s leadership enable Kimmel\u2019s atrocious behavior at the expense of our community.\u201d<\/p>\n

\tThe move marks the second time in seven months that Kimmel has had to explain and apologize for a joke that became connected to a political assassination headline. The first was after Charlie Kirk\u2019s murder in September, where a Kimmel joke led to ABC briefly suspending his show. <\/p>\n

\tABC made no comment on the matter. <\/p>\n

\tTrump has feuded with Kimmel since 2016 and has called for the talk show\u2019s cancellation several times. While Kimmel has long made mocking Trump a focal point of his monologues. Trump previously was credited \u2014 correctly or not \u2014 with pushing CBS to cancel another late-night critic of his administration, Stephen Colbert, whose The<\/em> Late Show<\/em> ends next month. After the Colbert decision, Trump posted on social media, \u201cI absolutely love that Colbert got fired. His talent was even less than his ratings. I hear Jimmy Kimmel is next. Has even less talent than Colbert!\u201d \t<\/p>\n

\tThe WHCD shooting marked the third time Trump\u2019s security perimeter has been breached by a man with a gun who intended to cause the president harm during his second term. The first was in July 2024, during a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, when Thomas Matthew Crooks opened fire on Trump with a rifle, grazing the president\u2019s ear. The second was in September 2024, when Ryan Wesley Routh was spotted with a rifle at a golf tournament while Trump was playing. <\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Logo text Jimmy Kimmel pushed back on the backlash against his \u201cexpectant widow\u201d joke, declining to apologize for the joke itself and instead mocking the Trumps\u2019 calls to cancel his show. During his Monday night monologue, the Jimmy Kimmel Live! host took the stage in a pitch-black suit and told ABC viewers, \u201cYou 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\u2019ve all been there, right?\u201d Kimmel briefly explained the history of the White House Correspondents\u2019 Dinner and how there used to be a comedian hosting the annual event, but Trump has halted that […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":571,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"tdm_status":"","tdm_grid_status":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[173,2,234,247,85,86,241],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-570","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-donald-trump","category-hollywood","category-jimmy-kimmel","category-jimmy-kimmel-live","category-tv","category-tv-news","category-white-house-correspondents-dinner"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsmag.live\/ja\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/570","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsmag.live\/ja\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsmag.live\/ja\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsmag.live\/ja\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsmag.live\/ja\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=570"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/newsmag.live\/ja\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/570\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsmag.live\/ja\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/571"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsmag.live\/ja\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=570"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsmag.live\/ja\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=570"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsmag.live\/ja\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=570"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}