Kimmel Rejects 'Call to Assassination' Claim Over Melania Trump 'Expectant Widow' Joke

Jimmy Kimmel used the opening of his April 27 episode of 'Jimmy Kimmel Live!' to push back against demands from President Donald Trump and First Lady Melania Trump that ABC fire him over a joke he made about Melania earlier in the week. Kimmel said the remark — in which he described Melania as having 'a glow like an expectant widow' — was 'not by any stretch of the definition a call to assassination.'

The Details

The controversy began on April 23, when Kimmel aired a mock White House Correspondents' Dinner monologue on his ABC late-night program and delivered the 'expectant widow' line about Melania Trump, according to Variety. The joke referenced the age difference between the president, who is nearly 80, and the First Lady, who is younger than Kimmel himself.

Two days later, on April 25, the real White House Correspondents' Dinner at the Washington Hilton was disrupted by an armed attacker. Authorities identified the suspect as Cole Tomas Allen and charged him with attempting to assassinate the president, according to the BBC.

The attack sharpened the backlash against Kimmel's earlier joke. On April 27, Donald Trump posted on Truth Social calling Kimmel's remark a 'despicable call to violence' and demanding that ABC and Disney 'immediately fire' him, according to PBS NewsHour and the Associated Press. In a separate statement on social media, Melania Trump described Kimmel's words as 'hateful and violent' and said ABC should 'take a stand' against him, according to NPR.

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt also condemned the remark, saying rhetoric like Kimmel's had helped legitimize violence against Trump and his supporters, according to Forbes.

That same evening, Kimmel addressed the controversy at the top of his show. 'It was a very light roast joke about the fact that he's almost 80 and she's younger than I am. It was not by any stretch of the definition a call to assassination. And they know that,' Kimmel said, as reported by Variety.

ABC had not publicly commented on the firing demands at the time multiple outlets published Monday's coverage, according to PBS NewsHour and the AP.

Context

The dispute marks the second time in roughly a year that Trump-aligned pressure has targeted Kimmel's position at ABC. In 2025, ABC briefly pulled 'Jimmy Kimmel Live!' after backlash over comments Kimmel made following conservative commentator Charlie Kirk's assassination, according to NPR. The show was restored days later.

After that earlier episode ended, Kimmel acknowledged that some of his 2025 remarks about Kirk's assassination were 'ill-timed or unclear or maybe both,' according to NPR. Coverage of the current dispute repeatedly frames it as 'déjà vu,' given that Trump and allied officials had already pressured ABC over Kimmel once before, according to Deadline.

The new controversy unfolded against the backdrop of the White House Correspondents' Dinner attack, which gave the Trumps' characterization of Kimmel's joke additional political weight. Kimmel's defenders have argued the remark was a comment on the couple's age gap, not a statement of intent.

What's Next

ABC had not responded to the firing calls as of the time of this report, according to PBS NewsHour and the AP. No public statement from the network or Disney was available in the sourced record. Whether ABC takes action — or declines to, as it ultimately did after the 2025 controversy — remains an open question pending a network response.