George Clooney has thrown his weight behind Jimmy Kimmel following Donald Trump’s latest demand for ABC to fire the late-night host.
Speaking on Monday night at the 51st Chaplin Award Gala, where he was being honoured for his cinematic career, the Oscar winner defended Kimmel’s right to make jokes after the president condemned a recent skit as a “despicable call to violence”.
The controversy stems from a joke regarding Melania Trump having the glow of an “expectant widow”, a remark made just two days before the White House Correspondents’ Dinner was cancelled due to a live shooter entering the building.
The actor, who is the son of a journalist, used his platform to address the increasingly heated political climate, comparing the backlash against Kimmel to comments made by White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt.
Leavitt had told reporters there would be “some shots fired” at the dinner, a comment Clooney believes was a joke taken out of context, much like Kimmel’s.
While he acknowledged that “jokes are jokes”, Clooney warned that the current rhetoric is becoming dangerous, particularly when one side begins labelling anyone they disagree with as “traitors to the country”, a charge he noted is punishable by death.
Clooney’s advocacy for the press and free speech is a long-standing family tradition, rooted in a mantra passed down from his father to challenge those with more power.
He told the audience that this approach had served his family well, even when it led to trouble, which he described as a “good thing”.
His commitment to these values was evident in his recent stage adaptation of Good Night, and Good Luck, a project detailing the televised confrontation between Edward R. Murrow and Senator Joseph McCarthy during the Red Scare.
An unapologetic Democrat, Clooney stood by his support for leaders like Bill Clinton and Barack Obama while maintaining that no person in power should ever have a comfortable relationship with the media.
