TMZ Issues Mea Culpa After Laughter Is Heard on Air During Coverage of Charlie Kirk’s Killing

TMZ has issued an apology after laughter was heard on air during coverage of the fatal shooting of conservative activist Charlie Kirk, who was shot in the neck on Wednesday while at a speaking engagement at a Utah college and later died from the injury.

Kirk’s death at the age of 31 has brought outrage and sadness from both sides of America’s political divide, with thoughts and prayers being sent to his widow and their two children, while harsh backlash is being directed at those who have made critical comments about the Turning Points USA founder and close ally of President Donald Trump. On Wednesday, MSNBC analyst Matt Dowd was fired for comments he made during on-air coverage of the Kirk shooting in which he referred to Kirk as an “especially divisive” person and said he was “constantly pushing this hate speech.”

“I always go back to, hateful thoughts lead to hateful words, which then lead to hateful actions,” Dowd said.

On late-night television, hosts typically critical of the right have condemned the broad daylight killing.

This rare unity across the aisle in the wake of a horrible tragedy left TMZ, the popular entertainment news platform known for its tenacity and deluge of scoops, on the defensive about the on-air snickering. On Wednesday, TMZ issued a blanket apology that noted the laughing staffers were not immersed in coverage of Kirk’s death but at the time were viewing a car chase on one of the in-studio TV screens.

“We want to address something that happened during our TMZ livestream coverage of the assassination of Charlie Kirk,” the company said. “As Harvey and Charles were reporting the developments in our newsroom, there were employees in another part of the building watching a car chase. The people watching that car chase began laughing and clapping in reaction to what they were seeing, but we want to make it clear … they were not cheering in response to the assassination.

“Nevertheless … watching a car chase at that moment was tone deaf, and the sounds of laughter at that crucial moment were totally out of line. We apologize to anyone who heard that as we were in the middle of covering such a tragic story,” the company concluded in the statement posted to TMZ.com.

Kirk was shot in the neck at a speaking event at Utah Valley University on Wednesday. The large crowd was attending an outdoor “Prove Me Wrong” debate, where Kirk invites students to challenge his political and cultural views.

Kirk’s staunch political conservatism and savvy wielding of Turning Points USA Super PAC to sway voters played a key role for Trump and other Republican candidates in the 2024 election. His death led some people online to unearth a few of his quotes and comments to make a point about the activist’s perspective and state of mind. As recently as a few months ago, Kirk said this about mass shooting events in America: “It’s worth it to have a cost of, unfortunately, some gun deaths every single year so that we can have the Second Amendment.”

On Friday, law enforcement officials announced that a suspect in Kirk’s killing had been taken into custody.