After Charlie Kirk was shot and killed last month, countless public figures shared their thoughts, and many became quite emotional while discussing the situation.
One of those celebrities was Jamie Lee Curtis, who broke down in tears while discussing Kirk on Marc Maron’s podcast.
Many were surprised by Curtis’ remarks, given the fact that she has a trans daughter and has long been an outspoken advocate for LGBT rights.
Now, the Oscar winner is explaining her remarks and clarifying that she did not actually intend to praise Kirk.
Jamie Lee Curtis says she never praised Charlie Kirk
“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 in a new interview with Variety.
“And so it was a mistranslation, which is a pun, but not. In the binary world today, you cannot hold two ideas at the same time,” she continued, adding:
“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, because you get vilified for having a mind that says, ‘I can hold both those thoughts. I can be contradictory in that way.’”
“I’m associated with this awful day of someone being assassinated on television,” she complained.
Curtis later shot back at the interviewer for suggesting that she felt the need to be “careful” with her public remarks.
“I don’t have to be careful. If I was careful, I wouldn’t have told you any of what I just told you,” she explained. adding:
“I would have just said, ‘Hi, welcome. I baked you banana bread. Here’s my dog. Here’s my house, blah, blah, blah. What do you want to know?’ I can’t not be who I am in the moment I am.”
Curtis received backlash for initial Kirk comments
“I mean, I disagreed with him on almost every point I ever heard him say. But I believe he was a man of faith, and I hope in that moment when he died, that he felt connected to his faith,” Curtis remarked one week after Kirk’s death, adding:
“Even though I find what his ideas were abhorrent to me, I still believe he’s a father and a husband and a man of faith, and I hope whatever ‘connection to God’ means, that he felt it.”
As Page Six points out, Curtis faced immediate backlash on social media.
“You disagree with almost every point you heard him say but also believe him to be a man of faith? The knots people tie themselves up in trying to please both sides of aisle are hilarious,” tweeted one user.
“Jamie- history is FULL of men who did horrible things in the name of their ‘faith,’” another wrote.
The Variety interview marks the first time that Curtis has responded to that criticism.