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Jimmy Kimmel returned to Jimmy Kimmel Live! for his first show of the year and delivered a scathing monologue after Aaron Rodgers made baseless claims that the comedian was linked to Jeffrey Epstein.
On Monday, the comedian roasted the quarterback for seven minutes, describing him as a “hamster-brained man” who “thinks he knows what the government is up to because he's a quarterback who researches YouTube and listens to podcasts.”
Last week, Rodgers said on ESPN's Pat McAfee Show that he would “pop some kind of bottle” once a “list” of Epstein associates was released, and that “a lot of people, including Jimmy Kimmel,” had hoped that this list would not be published. It won't come out. Not surprisingly, Kimmel's name was nowhere to be found among the hundreds of pages of unsealed records that were part of Epstein accuser Virginia Giuffre's civil case against Ghislaine Maxwell in 2015.
In response to the Jets star's thoughtless comments, Kimmel threatened to take Rodgers to court. While Kimmel took time out of his vacation break to talk about the “asshole” on X (formerly Twitter), the host struck twice on Monday night.
“I don’t know Jeffrey Epstein. I've never met Jeffrey Epstein. “I’ve never been on a list, a plane, an island or anything else,” Kimmel began during his opening monologue. “I suggested that if Aaron wanted to make such false and very damaging statements, we should do so in court so that he could present his evidence to, for example, a judge. Because when you hear a guy who has won a Super Bowl and been in every State Farm commercial, a lot of people believe him. Many delusional people honestly believe that I meet Tom Hanks and Oprah at Shakey's once a week to eat pizza and drink the blood of children.”
After discovering that Rodgers had retaliated against a segment of his 2023 show that took aim at the quarterback's penchant for conspiracy theories, Kimmel went on to suggest that Rodgers was suffering from the Dunning-Kruger effect — “a cognitive one Bias in which people with limited abilities suffer from “competence in a particular area” and overestimate their abilities.”
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“Aaron Rodgers has a very high opinion of himself because he has had success on the football pitch, he thinks he is an exceptional being. He truly believes he is smarter than everyone else because God gave him the ability to throw a ball. The idea that his brain is just average is unimaginable to him. We learned during COVID that somehow he knows more about science than scientists do,” he continued.
Kimmel clarified that he is not “one of the people who thinks athletes and members of the sports media should continue to talk about sports,” and said that Rodgers “has the right to express whatever opinion he wants to express.” , but to say that someone is a pedophile.” Not an opinion, nor is it trash talk. “Sorry, Pat McAfee.”
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To those who argued that his show “says things about people all the time,” Kimmel responded, “We don't make up lies.” He added, “We have a team of people who work very hard to provide facts and reputable sources before I make a joke, and that’s an important distinction.”
Kimmel noted that while he occasionally does something wrong, he apologizes for it and suggested that Rodgers should do the same. “That’s what Aaron Rodgers should do. “That’s what a decent person would do,” the late-night host said. “But I bet he won’t. If he does, you know what I will do, I will accept his apology and move on. But he probably won’t.”