Jimmy Kimmel joked about his ongoing feud with the first lady Melania Trump in the first minute of his show on Monday.
In the episode of “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” the late-night host said, “You know, sometimes you wake up in the morning, and the first lady puts out the statement demanding you be fired from your job? We’ve all been there, right?”
He said on the show that his “widow” joke on Thursday went unnoticed until Monday, when he “greeted the day facing yet another Twitter vomit storm.”
Kimmel made his initial joke during a sketch on Thursday’s show, which was taped a few days before the White House Correspondents’ Dinner in Washington, DC. During the sketch, he said the first lady “had a glow like an expectant widow.”
Melania Trump slammed Kimmel in a Monday X post, saying his “hateful and violent rhetoric is intended to divide our country.”
She said Kimmel “shouldn’t have the opportunity to enter our homes each evening to spread hate,” and called for ABC to take a stand against him.
In a Truth Social post on Monday, Trump said that Kimmel should be “immediately fired by Disney and ABC,” and that his comments were “really shocking.”
Kimmel was not present at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner on Saturday, when a gunman entered the venue and fired shots. Trump, Vice President JD Vance, and Melania Trump were evacuated off the stage unharmed.
The host doubled down on the widow joke during Monday’s episode, saying it referred to the age difference between Trump and Melania Trump.
He also responded to the first lady’s criticisms, saying he has been “very vocal” about gun violence and adding that “hateful and violent rhetoric is something we should reject.”
The late-night host has been in the crosshairs with Trump before. Last September, his show was suspended by ABC for comments he made on the shooting of conservative activist Charlie Kirk, which were condemned by the Federal Communications Commission’s chair, Brendan Carr.
The show went back on air less than a week after an outcry of support from free-speech advocates around the country.
This is the first major challenge for the newly installed Disney CEO, Josh D’Amaro, under the Trump administration. He is already facing the fallout from a failed OpenAI deal that would have brought AI-generated videos to Disney+.
