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Topics: News, US News, Jimmy Kimmel, Donald Trump
Kit Roberts
Topics: News, US News, Jimmy Kimmel, Donald Trump
Molly McNearney, the wife of comedian Jimmy Kimmel, has spoken of her 'hurt' after 'losing relationships' with people in her family over their right-wing views.
McNearney is the head writer and executive producer of Jimmy Kimmel Live! and revealed that politics has had a significant strain on her family, admitting she has cut ties with certain family members after they voted for Donald Trump.
Jimmy Kimmel Live! was briefly taken off the air after Kimmel made remarks about the fatal shooting of right-wing activist Charlie Kirk at a college event in Utah back in September.
In the segment, Kimmel accused Trump and his allies of exploiting Kirk's death for political advantage, saying: “We hit some new lows over the weekend with the MAGA gang trying to characterize this kid who killed Charlie Kirk as anything other than one of them and doing everything they can to score political points from it."
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But McNearney revealed that she has found it very difficult to reconcile with family members who voted for Trump.
Speaking on the We Can Do Hard Things podcast, McNearney said she had contacted family members ahead of the 2024 election, urging them not to vote for Trump.
She explained: “I’ve sent many emails to my family, like right before the election, saying, ‘I’m begging you. Here’s the 10 reasons not to vote for this guy. Please don’t.’
"And I either got ignored by 90 percent of them or got truly insane response from a few."
McNearney explained that her relationship has made her fight against Trump more personal, as her husband Kimmel is very publicly opposed to the president, and when her own family then backs Trump, it feels like a rejection of her family.
She explained: “It hurts me so much because of the personal relationships I now have, where my husband is out there fighting this man, and to me, them voting for Trump is them not voting for my husband and me and our family.
"And I unfortunately have kind of lost relationships with people in my family because of it.”
But while she said she is 'angry all the time' with some uncles, aunts, and cousins for voting for Trump, she nonetheless feels 'sympathy' towards them.
She called them 'deliberately misinformed', but added that she has grown closer to other family members who did not vote for Trump.
Kimmel has made a big show of publicly criticizing the president, and the brief cancellation of his show resulted in a wide public backlash before it was restored less than a week after being pulled.