It’s not as if our expectations of TMZ were that high, but the celebrity news outlet still managed to sink beneath them during a livestream of the events following the assassination of conservative activist Charlie Kirk.
After TMZ went viral in a bad way for cheering at almost the exact moment it was announced Kirk was dead, the outlet issued a statement apologizing — not for the obvious, but excusing it (sort of) by claiming it was in response to a police chase ending.
Kirk, 31, was shot and killed during an event at Utah Valley University on Wednesday. As of 10:00 p.m. Eastern Time, his assassin is still at large; authorities have taken two suspects into custody and then released them.
Thus, it’s unsurprising that this was the only event people were talking about all afternoon. It’s also unsurprising that the media’s reaction to a conservative heavyweight was tone-deaf, with The New York Times essentially calling him a televangelist and a charlatan, and MSNBC saying that he was a “divisive figure, polarizing, lightning rod, whatever term you want to use.”
It was also shocking but sadly unsurprising to see this reaction in TMZ’s offices as Kirk’s death was announced:
DISGUSTING:
During the @TMZ livestream today, employees at TMZ could be heard CHEERING 30 seconds before @charliekirk11’s death was announced on the TMZ livestream. They were happy to hear the news of Charlie Kirk’s death and can be heard clapping and cheering before passing the… pic.twitter.com/gqtQdq9Gwi
— Laura Loomer (@LauraLoomer) September 10, 2025
There seemed to be no way to spin this to look good, considering that the commotion sounded happy and one person can even be heard saying, “whoo-hoo!”
TMZ leans to the left; although it’s not explicitly political, its job is effectively to echo whatever the Hollywood line is. Ergo, people were appalled but not surprised.
Do you believe the TMZ staff were cheering a police chase?
Much like other media outlets that said or did horrifying things in the wake of the shooting, TMZ was quick to respond — although not like you’d expect.
As Harvey and Charles were reporting the developments in our newsroom, there were employees in another part of the building watching a car chase.
The people watching that car chase began laughing and clapping in reaction to what they were seeing, but we want to make it clear… they were not cheering in response to the assassination.
Nevertheless… watching a car chase at that moment was tone deaf, and the sounds of laughter at that crucial moment were totally out of line.
To the extent that this can be believed, a theft suspect was taken into custody after a chase in southeast Los Angeles at roughly the same time on Wednesday, KTTV-TV reported.
However, this was at a moment when all eyes were on Utah and the developments unfolding out of there.
That story generated no more than seven sentences in KTTV’s reporting; there are X posts longer than the coverage the station gave the pursuit.
It also requires believing that an outlet like TMZ is so predisposed toward seeing a criminal get theirs. Just now? The scum-suckers of the Hollywood gossip tank are backing the blue?
And at the exact moment that the only story in America is political violence against one of its most prominent conservative activists — so much so that TMZ itself is live-streaming impresario Harvey Levin reporting on it?
Even if this is true, it doesn’t explain why such a tragic event, which dominated the news on a dark day for America, would be ignored in favor of cheering on the resolution of a minor car chase, which was of interest solely to people living in that corner of the world.
The problem is that even if the excuse is true, it doesn’t matter, because we know what these people are. They despise conservatives, MAGA, and most of all, Donald J. Trump.
Trump wouldn’t have won without Charlie, and they couldn’t beat Charlie in debate, so they killed him. Plain and simple. And not only that, but the left cheered the murder on in multifarious ways.
When the country stood still on Wednesday, TMZ cheered. They want you to believe that the cheering was for something else, as if that makes it look better. It’s a sad statement on the nature of our affairs in this year of our Lord 2025.
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