Jimmy Kimmel kicked off his first “Jimmy Kimmel Live” of 2024 by laying into NY Jets quarterback Aaron Rodgers over false comments the NFL star made about him last week.
Kimmel said that if Rodgers apologizes for falsely suggesting he’s pedophile, “I’ll accept his apology and move on.” But the ABC late night host said he doesn’t expect he’ll ever receive one. So in addition to a lot of jokes at Rodgers’ expense, Kimmel instead used the discussion as a plea for people who are conservative but don’t agree with the tactic of calling political opponents vile names to “re-think being a part of that group.”
But he have one nice thing to say about Rodgers, joking that he “has done the impossible. He made the New York Jets look even worse.”
For those who don’t remember, on Jan. 2 Rodgers appeared on Pat McAfee’s ESPN show — he’s a regular guest. The discussion to turned to the impending release of court documents that contain the unredacted names of people associated with billionaire sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein. And during this discussion, Rodgers, while pledging to celebrate once they were out, implied that Kimmel would be one of the people outed as a participant in Epstein’s sex trafficking crimes.
This claim was based on hoax documents shared online prior to the release of the real thing, and in response Kimmel, who has never been connected to Epstein and whose name is not included in the documents, threatened to sue Rodgers. McAfee for his part issued a statement that barely qualifies as an apology in which he defended Rodgers as “just trying to talk s—.”
Rodgers has yet to comment publicly on the matter, which brings us to today.
“Thank you for joining us on our for our first show of 2024. Which is already a crazy year – particularly for me,” Kimmel began, after which he explained the situation to his audience.
“Out of the blue,” Kimmel said, Rodgers “insinuated that I was nervous because the Jeffrey Epstein list was coming out. He said I was hoping it wouldn’t… And then it did come out – and of course, my name wasn’t on it, isn’t on it, and won’t ever be on it. I don’t know Jeffrey Epstein, I’ve never met Jeffrey Epstein – I am not on a list, I was not on a plane – or an island – or anything ever.”
Kimmel then recapped how he offered “debate the facts further in court,” explaining that he went there “because you know when you hear a guy who won a Super Bowl, did all the State Farm commercials, say something like this, a lot of people believe it.”
Kimmel said he and his family have in fact received threatening letters from people who believe such things “thanks to Aaron Rodgers,” who Kimmel speculated doesn’t actually believe the false claims himself and is really just angry because of the jokes Kimmel has told about him, in particular how Rodgers lied about being vaccinated.
After showing some clips of said jokes, Kimmel continued, saying, “this is how these nuts do it now. You don’t like Trump? You’re a pedophile. It’s their go-to move. And it shows you how much they actually care about pedophilia.”
Kimmel then took aim at Rodgers himself, describing the former Green Bay Packers player as the embodiment of the Dunning–Kruger effect, which Kimmel explained is “a cognitive bias in which people with limited competence in a particular domain – overestimate their abilities.”
“In other words, Aaron Rodgers is too arrogant to know how ignorant he is,” Kimmel quipped.
Kimmel was careful to make it clear that I’m not one of those people thinks athletes and members of the sports media should stick to talking about sports. I think Aaron Rodgers has the right to express any opinion he wants. But saying someone is a pedophile is not an opinion. Nor is it ‘trash talk.’ Sorry, Pat McAfee.”
Kimmel explained that on his show, he and his staff make sure that any jokes they do don’t contain actual falsehoods. “We don’t make up lies,” Kimmel said, “even when that someone is Donald Trump.”
“Because the truth still matters. And when I do get something wrong, which happens on rare occasions, you know what I do? I apologize for it,” Kimmel continued. “Which is what Aaron Rodgers should do. Which is what a decent person would do. But I bet he won’t. If he does, you know what I’ll do? I’ll accept his apology and move on.”
“He probably won’t do that. My guess is he won’t apologize. I hope I’m wrong. That’s how I think it will go,” Kimmel continued.
After thanking his fans for sending well wishes to him after the incident, Kimmel then used the topic to address conservatives directly.
“My real hope, the reason I even bring this up, is because I hope the many, many decent people out there who vote ‘conservative’ or whatever you want to call what goes on now — I don’t see anything conservative about any of it — but to those of you who are part of that, I want to say this, and I hope you’ll listen and give it a little bit of consideration: If you are a member of a group that thinks it’s OK to randomly call someone a child molester because you don’t like what that person has to say, maybe you should re-think being a part of that group,” Kimmel said.
“And I also want to say congratulations to Aaron Rodgers, who has done the impossible: He made the New York Jets look even worse,” Kimmel concluded.
Watch the monologue above now.