Melania Trump breaks silence on Jimmy Kimmel’s days-old joke describing her as ‘expectant widow’

Jimmy Kimmel has landed on the Trumps’ bad side once again.

Echoing her husband’s long-standing wishes for the veteran talk show host to be fired, Melania Trump reacted to a days-old joke the ABC personality made that pre-dated the shooting at the White House Correspondents Dinner, during which a gunman stormed into the Washington Hilton, and shots were fired a floor away from where the event was being held.

During his show on Thursday, April 23, two days before the famed dinner, the comedian suggested the first lady had the glow of an “expectant widow,” while parodying the WHCD.

In a rare, personal statement on Twitter (now X), Melania, three days after the joke was said, stated: “Kimmel’s hateful and violent rhetoric is intended to divide our country. His monologue about my family isn’t comedy — his words are corrosive and deepens the political sickness within America.”

“People like Kimmel shouldn’t have the opportunity to enter our homes each evening to spread hate,” she added. Jimmy has been enjoying a rise in viewership in recent months, ever since he was controversially yanked off of the air in September of last year after a comment he made about late far-right personality Charlie Kirk.

“A coward, Kimmel hides behind ABC because he knows the network will keep running cover to protect him,” Melania went on. When Jimmy was first suspended, ABC in fact came under fire for giving into FCC chairman Brendan Carr’s wishes for him to be pulled off the air, which was celebrated by Donald Trump.

“Enough is enough. It is time for ABC to take a stand. How many times will ABC’s leadership enable Kimmel’s atrocious behavior at the expense of our community,” Melania concluded.

Reactions to the statement were not particularly in the Slovenia-native’s favor, with many pointing to her husband’s own famously divisive comments, among some mentioned being him celebrating the late former FBI director Robert Mueller’s death last month, calling a female reporter “piggy,” and sharing a racist video of Michelle and Barack Obama as apes in March, which he later deleted.

In his joke on Thursday, Jimmy, giving his own version of White House Correspondents’ Dinner speech, made a reference to Trump, who will be 80 in June, dying.

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“Our first lady, Melania, is here. Look at Melania, so beautiful. Mrs. Trump, you have a glow like an expectant widow,” he said.

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The joke continued: “You know, Melania’s birthday is on Sunday. She’s planning to celebrate at home the same way she always does, looking out a window and whispering, ‘What have I done?'”

Trump has already reacted to the WHCD shooting — with his administration appearing in good spirits in photos of a subsequent press conference — which he used to reiterate the need for his White House ballroom, which a federal judge has ruled unlawful given its lack of congressional approval. Suspect Cole Tomas Allen, who was arrested at the scene, is already in custody.