George Clooney defends Jimmy Kimmel’s Melania skit: ‘Jokes are jokes’
George Clooney is speaking out in defense of Jimmy Kimmel following Donald Trump’s latest attempt to pressure ABC to fire the late-night host. The president denounced Kimmel’s “despicable call to violence” on Monday, referring to a joke in which Melania had the glow of a “widow-to-be.” The comment was made during a skit on “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” which aired two days before the White House Correspondents Dinner, which was ultimately canceled after a live shooter infiltrated the building.
Clooney compared the response to another pre-dinner comment that was taken out of context online: a comment from White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt.
“Jimmy is a comedian, and I would argue that Karoline Leavitt did not mean for any shots to be fired,” Clooney said Monday night at the 51st Chaplin Award Gala, where he was honored for his contributions to cinema. “She was joking. Fair enough. You look at that side and say, ‘Well, jokes are jokes.’ But the rhetoric is a bit dangerous. And we’ve seen it a lot lately.”
Levit told Fox News on the red carpet before heading to the White House Correspondents Dinner said that “there’s going to be a number of shots fired in the room tonight,” presumably referring to the jokes written for the reception. Clooney says this kind of hyperbolic rhetoric “can be toned down.”
“When one side has someone calling out that they don’t agree with being traitors to the country, which is a charge punishable by death, just because they don’t agree with someone, I think the rhetoric is a little too intense,” Clooney said.
The Chaplin Award Gala has previously recognized Hollywood figures who have been outspoken about current political events, including Pedro Almodóvar, Spike Lee and Robert Redford. Clooney, the son of a journalist, has repeatedly advocated for press freedom. One of the actor’s most recent projects was a stage adaptation of his 2005 film “Good Night, and Good Luck,” which chronicled Edward R. Murrow’s television takedown of Senator Joseph McCarthy at the height of the Red Scare.
“My father’s rule when we were growing up was to challenge people with more power,” Clooney said. “That’s always been our mantra. That’s what my sister and I believed in, and what my mother and father believed in. It’s served us well. It’s gotten us into trouble, and that’s a good thing.”
The evening’s gala hosts included Stephen Colbert, whose 2015 Late Show debut featured Clooney as his first guest, along with several of his co-stars from different phases of his career, including Julianna Margulies (“ER”), Sam Rockwell (“Confessions of a Dangerous Mind”) and John Turturro (“Brother, Where Art Thou?”).
“I always trust the press. I always believe in it. I’m the son of a journalist, you know?” Clooney concluded. “I also think you’re not supposed to have a good relationship with the government. You’re supposed to question them. The people I support: the Democrats. So I’m a Democrat. I make no apologies for it. The people I support — Bill Clinton, Barack Obama — didn’t like being chased by reporters. People in power don’t like having to answer all the questions in the world. That’s fair. They shouldn’t enjoy it. And the reporters should make sure that they hold the people to the fire. Those are the rules that Jefferson talked about in 1787. We should be able to have a free and fair press.”
