Jamie Lee Curtis Breaks Silence on Backlash to Her Charlie Kirk Comments: ‘It Was a Mistranslation’

NEED TO KNOW

• Jamie Lee Curtis addressed the viral commentary surrounding her tear-filled remarks about Charlie Kirk’s assassination in September

• The actress said an excerpt of the podcast appearance “mistranslated what I was saying as I wished him well”

• Curtis said she “wasn’t” intending to speak about Kirk “in a very positive way” but was talking about his “faith”

Jamie Lee Curtis is clarifying her remarks about Charlie Kirk‘s death that generated backlash online.

Last month, the Oscar winner was a guest on the WTF with Marc Maron podcast for an episode recorded two days after 31-year-old Kirk, a right-wing media personality who founded conservative advocacy group Turning Point USA, was shot and killed in front of a crowd during a public speaking event at Utah Valley University on Sept. 10.

“I’m going to bring something up with you just because it’s front of mind,” Curtis, 66, said during the wide-ranging podcast, adding through tears at the time: “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.”

“Even though his ideas were abhorrent to me,” she continued, “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.”

While some on social media commended Curtis for having empathy toward someone with vastly different political views, others criticized her for appearing to excuse Kirk’s controversial messaging, particularly his rejection of transgender people. (One of Curtis’ daughters, 29-year-old Ruby, is trans.)

In a new interview with Variety published Tuesday, Oct. 28, Curtis addressed the backlash to her comments for the first time, saying, “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.”

“So it was a mistranslation, which is a pun, but not,” she continued. “In the binary world today, you cannot hold two ideas at the same time: 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.’ “

The Lost Bus producer Curtis will be being honored at Variety‘s 2025 Power of Women event in Los Angeles on Oct. 29, highlighting her philanthropic efforts with Children’s Hospital Los Angeles.

Curtis, who next stars in the film Ella McCay, told the outlet she doesn’t set out to be “careful” in her outspokenness as a Hollywood star.

“If I was careful,” she said, “I wouldn’t have told you any of what I just told you. 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 explained the importance of her own activism in a July interview with The Guardian.

“I’m an outspoken advocate for the right of human beings to be who they are,” said the Freakier Friday actress. “And if a governmental organization tries to claim they’re not allowed to be who they are, I will fight against that.”

“I’m a John Steinbeck student — he’s my favorite writer — and there’s a beautiful piece of writing from East of Eden about the freedom of people to be who they are,” she continued. “Any government, religion, institution trying to limit that freedom is what I need to fight against.”

Read the original article on People