TMZ faced massive backlash after staff of the outlet could be heard erupting in cheers seconds before host Harvey Levin announced Charlie Kirk’s death on Wednesday.
The footage, captured during a live broadcast covering Kirk’s assassination at Utah Valley University, revealed audible cheers, laughter, and applause from the newsroom as producers relayed President Donald Trump’s confirmation of Kirk’s passing.
Kirk, 31, a beloved husband, father of two very young children, and founder of Turning Point USA, was shot in the neck from 200 yards away while speaking on campus, in what Utah Gov. Spencer Cox has called a “political assassination.”
In a desperate bid to deflect the outrage, TMZ issued a statement claiming the cheers were unrelated to Kirk’s death.
According to the outlet, the noise came from employees in another part of the building who were watching a live police car chase unfolding in Temple City, California, not the tragic announcement. Hosts Harvey Levin and Charles Latibeaudiere addressed the controversy on air, calling the laughter “tone-deaf” in hindsight and apologizing for the poor optics during a time of national mourning.
“As we were reporting the assassination of Charlie Kirk, there were some people in the back room away from our news desk who were watching a car chase, and they were laughing and clapping…they were not laughing that way about Charlie Kirk’s assassination,” Levin claimed.
Hellbound and Down 