Jimmy Kimmel has sparked some controversy with a skit that aired last week on Jimmy Kimmel Live, which prompted ABC to formally apologize in a statement.
In the skit, Kimmel had kids talk about news events and one boy, aged 6, joked that one solution to the U.S.’ debt crisis was to “kill all the people in China.”
A pan-Asian-American organization called 80-20 has responded in a complaint, which resulted in the network’s apology.
"We offer our sincere apology. We would never purposefully broadcast anything to upset the Chinese community, Asian community, anyone of Chinese descent or any community at large,” ABC said in a letter to the group, People reports.
“Our objective is to entertain. We took swift action to minimize the distribution of the skit by removing it from all public platforms available to us and editing it out of any future airings of the show. We hope our actions and our apology effectively address your concerns. Thank you for bringing this to our attention."
The skit even spurred protests in San Francisco. Leader Carl Chan said outside of ABC’s headquarters, “We have a sense of humor, but not at the expense of killing all Chinese,” TIME reports.
The protestors demanded that ABC fire Kimmel and for others to “boycott ABC.”
image: ABC