Stephen King Forced To Apologize In Disgrace For Slandering Charlie Kirk

Legendary horror author Stephen King is backtracking after an inflammatory post suggesting Charlie Kirk advocated for gay people to be killed.

King, an outspoken liberal, delivered “exactly this kind of extreme rhetoric that encourages people to commit violence,” one critic wrote in response to his assertion that Kirk once called for LGBT people to be stoned to death.

Kirk, assassinated on Wednesday, was a devout Christian who, in debates, had brought up the biblical passage Leviticus 20:13, which refers to homosexual relations as an “abomination” and says gay men “certainly will die.”

“He advocated stoning gays to death. Just sayin’,” King wrote on Thursday.

After thousands of X users replied with outrage, King, 77, removed the post and issued an apology.

“I apologize for saying Charlie Kirk advocated stoning gays. What he actually demonstrated was how some people cherry-pick Biblical passages,” he wrote Friday morning.

Subsequent posts by King show that the online mob is slow to forgive, and he has responded to several critics by repeating his apology.

“The horrible, evil, twisted liar apologizes. This is what I get for reading something on Twitter w/o fact-checking. Won’t happen again,” he added.

King is undoubtedly the most well-respected and ubiquitous horror writer of the past century, but his reputation has seen dividing lines drawn over his frequent forays into politics. He co-signed a letter in 2016 opposing President Donald Trump’s candidacy, and he has written consistently about his support for LGBT rights and stronger gun control laws.

He has been a member of the Democratic Party since the 1970s, King has said in past interviews.

Just last week, King told a British paper that he predicted Trump supporters would deny voting for him in the coming decades.

“It’s a question, like the song says, ‘Which side are you on?’” he said while acknowledging that he is “aware” some of his fans may also support the president.

“There’s a story about the home run that was heard around the world,” King told the outlet. “There are… tens of thousands of people who will say, ‘I saw [the baseball player Bobby Thomson] hit that home run,’ and there were only, like, 5,000 people in the stands that day. So I think the opposite is true [with Trump]. Twenty or 30 years down the line, when I’ll be dead, and you’ll be old, I think a lot of people are going to say, ‘Well, I never voted for Trump.’”