The Melania Trump Joke Jimmy Kimmel Once Apologized For

Longtime late-night host Jimmy Kimmel has made many controversial jokes during his career. And while many of his jokes have revolved around politics and pop culture, he seems to have developed a special affinity for using laughter to take Donald Trump's circle down a peg or two. Unfortunately, Kimmel definitely went a touch too far during a 2018 episode of "Jimmy Kimmel Live." Responding to then-President Trump's praise of his wife, Melania Trump, and her involvement in that year's Easter Egg Roll, Kimmel said, "Not a chance she did one thing to help set that up. ... She didn't dye eggs. The only thing she's been working on is an escape tunnel," The Guardian noted.

During the segment, Kimmel played a clip of Melania reading the book, "You!" to a group of children at the white house. Kimmel also adopted a thick accent and mimicked parts of her phrasing. Then Kimmel joked, "Guillermo, you know what this means? You could be first lady of the United States," to Guillermo Diaz, his Mexican hype man, who also sports an accent. While Kimmel received a warm reception from his in-studio audience, many on social media felt his joke was in poor taste. Fox News host Sean Hannity tweeted, "Also @jimmykimmel attacking @MELANIATRUMP while reading a book to kids? ... Attacking a woman who is helping children? This is @Disney?" as appeared on Deadline.

Of course, this wasn't the end of this story. 

Sean Hannity's tweet was only the start of several attacks against Jimmy Kimmel. In the days after Kimmel's comments about Melania Trump, Hannity championed the rediscovery of several of Kimmel's past indiscretions, including a raunchy comic set where he propositioned women to touch him intimately. The clips originated from a time when Kimmel worked on "The Man Show," which previously aired on Comedy Central. "I don't take joy in this, but I have just had it with the unrelenting hypocrisy," Hannity said at the time, according to CBS News. "It's way bigger than Sean Hannity and Jimmy Kimmel." Hannity also compared Kimmel to disgraced Hollywood executive, Harvey Weinstein. 

While Kimmel initially indulged in his feud with Hannity, he eventually issued a lukewarm apology to the then-current first lady. "I will take Sean Hannity at his word that he was genuinely offended by what I believed and still believe to be a harmless and silly aside referencing our First Lady's accent," Kimmel tweeted in April of 2018, notes USA Today. Kimmel also threw in a subtle jab at Hannity. "Mrs. Trump almost certainly has enough to worry about without being used as a prop to increase TV ratings."

Although Jimmy Kimmel acknowledged that his joke about Melania Trump was in poor taste, that didn't stop him from feeding his long-running feud with her husband, Donald Trump. In 2020, Kimmel fired back at Trump over his commentary about then-Vice President Mike Pence's charitable efforts. At the time, Trump, who's always had a borderline obsessive interest in TV ratings, downplayed the impact of Kimmel's late-night show during one of his campaign rallies. "It turns out Fiberace gave me a shout-out during one of his blue-collar comedy tours," Kimmel said in response. "And I have to say: Sometimes it feels like he doesn't like me that much," he continued sarcastically. 

Of course, this wasn't the end of their feud by any means. Trump proudly took to Truth Social to lambast Kimmel's hosting skills at the 2024 Oscars. "Has there EVER been a WORSE HOST than Jimmy Kimmel at The Oscars," Trump wrote on the platform. "His opening was that of a less than average person trying too hard to be something which he is not, and never can be." He continued, "Why don't they just give the Oscars to those that deserve them. Maybe that way their audience and TV ratings will come back from the depths." Ouch! Talk about a scathing rebuke.