Jimmy Kimmel may have spent the last several years casting himself as a fierce critic of President Donald Trump, but not everyone is buying the late-night host’s transformation from comedy prankster to self-styled “defender of democracy.”

As Kimmel promotes a new interview with Rolling Stone — in which he says, “Now I see myself more as a place to scream,” — critics are digging up old footage and calling out what they see as hypocrisy. The most glaring: Kimmel’s past use of blackface, which once drew headlines and criticism but now has resurfaced in the wake of his latest anti-Trump monologues.

In one skit from his time on The Man Show and earlier radio stints, Kimmel impersonated NBA star Karl Malone while wearing dark makeup. He later apologized for the sketch during the Black Lives Matter protests in 2020, but the clip still circulates — and conservatives are using it as ammo.

“Every time Kimmel launches into a tirade about Trump or ‘what’s wrong with America,’ someone reposts that blackface video,” one commenter noted on X. “He made that bed.”

He said in the Rolling Stone interview, “I think it’s kind of funny, because the very people who are using those videos as an example of why I’m a horrible person were probably the biggest fans of the show at that time,” that resurfaced Man Show clips are “fair game.” He goes on to argue the show was intended as satire: “We did the show a little tongue-in-cheek. I mean, if you really watch the show, we are making fun of ourselves through almost the whole show.”
But many critics aren’t interested in nuance, especially after Kimmel launched into a lengthy attack on Trump’s character and the Republican Party.