TMZ has tendered an apology after staffers were caught laughing the moment conservative activist Charlie Kirk’s de@th was announced during an unflattering livestream.
The entertainment news outlet found itself in hot water while reporting on the shocking de@th of the influential Donald Trump ally on Wednesday, September 10.
While Harvey Levin and Charles Latibeaudiere were discussing the 31-year-old Turning Point USA founder’s assassination, laughter erupted in the background.
The laughter left viewers sickened by what they heard.
‘During today’s TMZ livestream, employees were heard cheering, clapping and celebrating just 30 seconds before announcing Charlie Kirk’s death,’ one X user wrote.
‘They laughed and applauded the cold-blooded murder of a husband and father on a public broadcast, like it was some kind of sick joke, before handing it off to Harvey Levin.’
Conservative internet personality Laura Loomer called the incident ‘DISGUSTING.’
‘Shameful and disgusting behavior by TMZ. Shame on them. Charlie is a husband and a father. He was murdered in cold blood,’ she wrote on X.
TMZ has broken its silence on the inappropriately-timed cheering, claiming there was no ill intent.
‘We were livestreaming all day during this tragedy,’ Levin began during an apology video alongside Latibeaudiere.
‘When 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.’
He explained that those individuals were laughing and clapping at the car chase, not Kirk being shot in the neck.
Levin went as far as to say those people ‘would not work here’ if they found Kirk’s death funny in anyway.
‘We acknowledge that it was horrible timing,’ Latibeaudiere chimed in. ‘And for that, we are sorry.
‘We assure you, [the laughter] was not about that.’