Politics
Jimmy Kimmel Calls RFK Jr. a ‘Dummy’ For Misspelling a Post Promoting a Satire Essay About Late-Night
Jimmy Kimmel fired back at Robert F. Kennedy Jr. on social media after the Health and Human Services secretary tried to lambaste the late-night host by misspelling a post he seemingly didn’t realize was satire.
In a Saturday, May 23 X post, RFK Jr., 72, criticized the state of late-night comedy in the wake of Stephen Colbert’s Late Show airing its final episode after 11 years on the air, sharing a lengthy essay by Peter Girnus on X about how the network turned Colbert from a “jester into a priest.”
Girnus’ post began with, “I am the Senior Vice President of Late Night Strategy at CBS.”
However, he is not. He is a self-described “Cyber Populist” who pens satirical essays, often from the point of view of executives.
RFK Jr. shared the post without explaining this. It’s unclear if he was aware of Girnus’ online persona.
“Superb dissection of the shocking collapse of liberal comedy,” RFK Jr. wrote. “This is the best explanation of how we’ve reached the nader [sic] where Late Night host Jimmy Kimmel can say ‘It’s not my job to be funny.’ As this author shows, he was hired as a comedian but he made himself a priest.”
Kimmel, 58, shared a screenshot of the post on his Instagram on Sunday, May 25, writing, “It’s ‘nadir’ dummy. Now get back to spreading polio.”
In addition to the misspelling, RFK Jr.’s assertion that Kimmel said “It’s not my job to be funny” is also incorrect. The basis of that quote seems to be from Babylon Bee, another satirical website that penned a comedic article with fake quotes claiming to be from Kimmel’s April 15 appearance on former first lady Michelle Obama’s podcast.
In reality, Kimmel actually talked about how he loves being funny and feels it’s his job to do so while talking about the issues of the world.
“I love telling jokes, I love being funny, I love when the audience laughs. There’s nothing that’s more exciting to me than that,” he said at the time. “I’ve always said, since the very beginning, even when I was on the radio, [my job] is to talk about what is going on in people’s lives.”
