Charlie Sheen compared the death of controversial conservative commentator Charlie Kirk to the 1963 assassination of President John F. Kennedy.
“I think, for this generation, that’s their JFK moment,” Sheen, 60, predicted during an appearance on Piers Morgan Uncensored on Tuesday, September 16. “If that’s where we’ve wound up, it cannot be where we stay. … It’s too surreal to process it, the unfairness of it. … We can’t keep having days like that moving forward.”
Sheen was being interviewed on the “Joe Rogan Experience” podcast when the news broke that Kirk had been shot while speaking at Utah Valley University in Orem, Utah, on September 10. Kirk was rushed to a local hospital but ultimately died at age 31.
A 22-year-old suspect, Tyler Robinson, has been charged with a capital offense, aggravated murder, and felony discharge of a firearm, as well as multiple lesser counts of obstruction of justice, witness tampering and commission of a violent offense in the presence of a child. Robinson appeared in court via satellite for his first hearing on Tuesday, but did not enter a plea and will remain in custody at the Utah County Jail without bail for now. According to CBS News, a waiver hearing will take place on Monday, September 29.
The former Two and a Half Men actor explained to talk show host Piers Morgan that he’d been discussing the JFK assassination with podcast host Joe Rogan prior to the breaking news, so the comparison between that historic tragedy and Kirk’s death felt appropriate.
“We’re discussing the JFK assassination earlier in that same interview … The moment happened and being with Rogan for the aftermath of it was helpful, if that makes sense?” he clarified.
After Morgan, 60, asked about his first reaction to Kirk’s death, Sheen insisted he thought initially about the grief that the pundit’s family must have faced.
“I first thought about his fatherless children, his wife instantly [made] a widow,” the actor said. “I didn’t care about any of the politics, any of the social [and] cultural aspects, at first. I immediately thought just of the family dynamic and component, and the value of what was just ripped from all of them forever in a ​​picosecond. It was Joe and I just trying to keep some kind of measure of … our wits and sensibilities about us, processing this.”
Many Hollywood stars have spoken out in the wake of Kirk’s death, including Jamie Lee Curtis breaking down into tears while discussing the situation on the “WTF with Marc Maron” podcast on Monday, September 15.
“I believe he was a man of faith, and I hope in that moment when he died that he felt connected to his faith,” the Oscar winner, 66, told host Marc Maron. “Even though I find what his ideas were abhorrent to me, 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.”
Mean Girls star Amanda Seyfried faced criticism this week for calling Kirk “hateful” while sharing an Instagram reel of some of his most inflammatory comments on race and abortion.
“I don’t want to add fuel to a fire. I just want to be able to give clarity to something so irresponsibly (but understandably) taken out of context,” Seyfried, 39, later explained via Instagram on Wednesday, September 17. “Spirited discourse — isn’t that what we should be having?”
She went on, “We’re forgetting the nuance of humanity. I can get angry about misogyny and racist rhetoric, and ALSO very much agree that Charlie Kirk’s murder was absolutely disturbing in every way imaginable. No one should have to experience this level of violence. This country is grieving too many senseless and violent deaths and shootings. Can we agree on that at least?”