Outlet Apologizes After Staffers Erupt In Laughter During Livestream Announcing Charlie Kirk’s Death

Celebrity news and entertainment outlet TMZ has issued an apology after a number of staffers appeared to be laughing during a livestream announcing Charlie Kirk’s death. The outlet has denied that anyone was celebrating the killing and insisted that the clip was taken out of context.

Conservative reporter Laura Loomer was among the first to report on the network’s livestream, which appeared to show people cheering 30 seconds before Kirk’s passing was announced.

“They were happy to hear the news of Charlie Kirk’s death and can be heard clapping and cheering before passing the news to Harvey Levin, who was hosting the stream,” Loomer wrote.

TMZ founder Harvey Levin and executive producer Charles Latibeaudiere then issued a joint-statement in which they stated the cheering was unrelated to Kirk’s matter, but a separate story. “As we were reporting the assassination of Charlie Kirk, there were some people in the back room — away from our news desk here — who were watching a car chase, and they were laughing. They were clapping. And you could hear it out here,” Levin explained.

“I know these people — and they were not laughing, they were not reacting that way about Charlie Kirk’s assassination. They were not,” Levin added. “And they would not work here if they did,” the TMZ founder added.

Latibeaudiere then chimed in to note that it was “horrible timing” and issued an apology. “And for that, we are sorry,” Latibeaudiere said. “We apologize,” Levin added.

While TMZ admitted to the mix-up, MSNBC was forced to fire one of its on-air personalities who suggested that Kirk deserved to be shot due to his political views.

“We don’t know any of the full details of this. We don’t know if this was a supporter shooting their gun off in celebration or so we have no idea about this,” MSNBC’s Matthew Dowd said less than 20 minutes after Kirk was fatally shot in the neck.

Dowd went on to insinuate that Kirk’s political views led to him being shot. “But following up with what was just said, he’s been one of the most divisive, especially divisive younger figures in this, who is constantly sort of pushing this sort of hate speech or sort of aimed at certain groups,” he said.

“And I always go back to Hateful thoughts lead to hateful words, which then lead to hateful actions. And I think that’s the environment we’re in, that people just, you can’t stop with these sort of awful thoughts you have and then saying these awful words and not expect awful actions to take place. And that’s the unfortunate environment we’re in.”

MSNBC condemned Dowd’s statements shortly after Kirk was pronounced dead about an hour later. He was then fired at some point on Wednesday evening.