Jamie Lee Curtis has spoken out against the “threatening” backlash she received over her emotional reaction to the death of right-wing activist Charlie Kirk.
Following the fatal September 10 shooting of Kirk, 31, at one of his routine college campus rallies in Utah, the Freaky Friday star, 66, appeared on an episode of Marc Maron’s WTF podcast and tearfully addressed his death.
While Curtis clarified during the episode that she “disagreed with [Kirk] on almost every point I ever heard him say,” her strong response made headlines and generated intense online criticism.
Breaking her silence on the ordeal in a new interview with Variety, the Oscar winner insisted her comments were misinterpreted.
“An excerpt of it mistranslated what I was saying as I wished him well — like I was talking about him in a very positive way, which I wasn’t; I was simply talking about his faith in God,” Curtis said.
“And so it was a mistranslation, which is a pun, but not,” she added, further lamenting how “in the binary world today, you cannot hold two ideas at the same time: I cannot be Jewish and totally believe in Israel’s right to exist and at the same time reject the destruction of Gaza.”
“You can’t say that,” Curtis argued, “because you get vilified for having a mind that says, ‘I can hold both those thoughts. I can be contradictory in that way.’”
During the original interview, the Halloween actor said that even though Kirk’s “ideas were abhorrent to me,” she still believed he “was a man of faith.”
“And I hope in that moment when he died, that he felt connected with his faith,” she said, reiterating, “I still believe he’s a father and a husband and a man of faith.”
Kirk, a fierce and loyal Donald Trump supporter and ally, was shot and killed while he was debating a college student about the prevalence of mass shootings and gun violence in the U.S.
22-year-old Tyler Robinson later surrendered himself to the police for killing Kirk. He’s been charged with aggravated murder, and prosecutors plan to seek the death penalty.
Kirk’s shocking death garnered attention from figures on both sides of the political spectrum who paid tribute, including Hollywood celebrities such as Chris Pratt, TV host Piers Morgan and comedian Rosie O’Donnell.
“Praying for Charlie Kirk right now, for his wife and young children, for our country,” Pratt, who is one of a few conservative voices in Hollywood, wrote on X/Twitter. “We need God’s grace. God help us.”
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