Aaron Rodgers Walks Back Claims About Jimmy Kimmel After Backlash
As he teased the day before, Aaron Rodgers did indeed address his acrimonious, ongoing feud with Jimmy Kimmel on Tuesday’s Pat McAfee Show.
The injured New York Jets quarterback kicked off 2024 by making some pretty outlandish implied claims against the late night host, suggesting that Kimmel’s name might appear on a list on Jeffrey Epstein associates. Naturally, when newly unsealed court documents were revealed to the public, Kimmel’s name was nowhere to be found. But at that point, the late night host had already threatened legal action against Rodgers.
For his part, Kimmel devoted the first seven minutes of his first monologue of the new year to the “hamster-brain” NFL star. Though, for what it’s worth, he did say that he would gladly accept an apology if one was forthcoming.
Well, when Rodgers made his Tuesday appearance, an apology was not quite in the cards. But the 40-year-old did make an attempt to walk back his previous remarks. First, however, he rehashed the bad blood between the two men, starting from back when Kimmel ridiculed his vaccination status during the height of the pandemic.
“So in my opinion, he ripped me about the vax, and that turns out to be an L on many occasions,” Rodgers said, once again making an unsubstantiated claim that Covid vaccines are not safe and effective. “So in my opinion, you went after me, that’s fine. You’re a comedian, go for it. Not offended, but that was an L.”
“It’s been a very interesting week and a lot of things have been said..
This history between Jimmy Kimmel and I goes back to Covid times” ~ @AaronRodgers12 #PMSLive pic.twitter.com/PVinCJtzp8
— Pat McAfee (@PatMcAfeeShow) January 9, 2024
After several additional minutes of airing his grievances with Kimmel, Rodgers finally got around to his non-apology.
“So then we fast forward to this last week, and I said that a lot of people, and I’m quoting myself here, ‘A lot of people, including Jimmy Kimmel, are hoping that doesn’t come out,'” he continued. “End quote. That’s what I said, that’s the entire quote. I was referring to the fact that if this is a list—which, again, this hasn’t come out yet—and there are names on it, that would be the second time that a soft brain, junior college student, wacko, anti-vax, anti-semite, spreader of misinformation, conspiracy theorist, MAGA, whatever other things that have been said by him and other people in the media would be right twice.”
“Now let me just say that that is the truth, number one. Number two, I totally understand how serious an allegation of pedophilia would be, so for him to be upset about that, I get it,” Rodgers claimed. “Did you watch the quote? Because that’s exactly what I said—verbatim, what I said on the show. I’m not stupid enough, even though you think that I’m an idiot, and you made a lot of comments about my intelligence, but I’m not stupid enough to accuse you of that with absolutely zero concrete evidence, that’s ridiculous.”
At the very least, Rodgers said that he and Kimmel could agree that any alleged crimes are “heinous,” and that there should be an investigation into who visited Epstein’s island.
“I still haven’t popped a bottle because there haven’t been any list that’s come out, and I’m glad that Jimmy is not on the list, I really am,” he said. “And I don’t think he’s the p-word. And you know, I think it’s impressive that a man who went to Arizona State and has 10 joke writers can read off a prompter. So my education at JuCo and my three semesters at Cal has worked out for me, and I’m glad to see it’s worked out for him as well.”
“So I wish him the best and I don’t give a s–t what he says about me,” Rodgers added, with the clear veracity of a man who is not even mad, bro. “But as long as he understands what I actually said and that I’m not accusing him of being on a list, and I’m all for moving forward.”
Suffice to say, it will be interesting to see how Kimmel responds to Rodgers’ latest, but it seems unlikely we’ve heard the last about the subject.
